categorize

Etymology

It is formed from English category + -ize;^[2][3][4][5] the OED compares French catégoriser.^[2][6] The noun, recorded from 1588,^[2] is from French catégorie and Late Latin catēgoria,^[3][7] from Ancient Greek κατηγορία (katēgoría, “accusation, assertion, predication”),^[2][3] an abstract noun from κατήγορος (katḗgoros, “accuser”).^[2] Ayto and Etymonline trace it to a Greek verb meaning "to speak against publicly, accuse", formed from the prefix for "against, down" and the word for a public assembly, the source of agoraphobia;^[7][3] the verb's sense weakened to "assert, name" before Aristotle applied the noun to his classes of things that can be named.^[7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To place in a category or categories; to classify: 1705, in E. Hickeringill's Priest-craft.^[2][4][3] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1695–1705.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The verb has kept the one sense of classifying since its first record.^[2][4] It was slow to spread: the Century Dictionary (1889–91) still marked it as rare.^[6] The noun categorization is recorded by Etymonline from 1866;^[3] the OED's first record is from 1886.^[2]

Timeline

• 1705 – to place in a category; to classify.^[2][4][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To put into a category or class; to classify: The librarian categorized the donated books by subject.^[8][9][4][2]

Word family

• categorizable
• categorization
• decategorize
• miscategorize
• recategorize

Related words

• category
• categorical
• agora

Usage notes

The spelling categorise is common in British English.^[8][5][1]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b Whitney, William Dwight, ed. (1889–1891), The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia, New York: The Century Co. (1901 printing)
7. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin