ASSORT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does assort mean? 

• ASSORT (verb)
  The verb ASSORT has 2 senses:

1. keep company with; hang out with

2. arrange or order by classes or categories

  Familiarity information: ASSORT used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ASSORT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they assort    ... he / she / it assorts   
Past simple: assorted   
Past participle: assorted   
-ing form: assorting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Keep company with; hang out with

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

affiliate; associate; assort; consort

Context example:

She affiliates with her colleagues

Hypernyms (to "assort" is one way to...):

interact (act together or towards others or with others)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "assort"):

ally (become an ally or associate, as by a treaty or marriage)

date; go out; go steady; see (date regularly; have a steady relationship with)

accompany; companion; company; keep company (be a companion to somebody)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s PP

Sense 2

Meaning:

Arrange or order by classes or categories

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

assort; class; classify; separate; sort; sort out

Context example:

How would you classify these pottery shards--are they prehistoric?

Hypernyms (to "assort" is one way to...):

categorise; categorize (place into or assign to a category)

"Assort" entails doing...:

compare (examine and note the similarities or differences of)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "assort"):

unitise; unitize (separate or classify into units)

catalog; catalogue (make an itemized list or catalog of; classify)

isolate (separate (experiences) from the emotions relating to them)

refer (think of, regard, or classify under a subsuming principle or with a general group or in relation to another)

reclassify (classify anew, change the previous classification)

size (sort according to size)

dichotomise; dichotomize (divide into two opposing groups or kinds)

pigeonhole; stamp; stereotype (treat or classify according to a mental stereotype)

group (arrange into a group or groups)

grade (determine the grade of or assign a grade to)

count; number (put into a group)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

assortment (the act of distributing things into classes or categories of the same type)

 Context examples 

Such another scheme, composed of so many ill-assorted people, she hoped never to be betrayed into again.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Recombination is involved in assorting genes during reproduction, in repairing broken DNA, and in maintaining cell viability at the expense of long-term genomic stability.

(DNA Recombination Process, NCI Thesaurus)

They looked at Dorothy and her strangely assorted company with wondering eyes, and the children all ran away and hid behind their mothers when they saw the Lion; but no one spoke to them.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

The innocent beauty of her face was not as innocent to me as it had been; I mistrusted the natural grace and charm of her manner; and when I looked at Agnes by her side, and thought how good and true Agnes was, suspicions arose within me that it was an ill-assorted friendship.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She was entreated to give them as much of her time as possible, invited for every day and all day long, or rather claimed as part of the family; and, in return, she naturally fell into all her wonted ways of attention and assistance, and on Charles's leaving them together, was listening to Mrs Musgrove's history of Louisa, and to Henrietta's of herself, giving opinions on business, and recommendations to shops; with intervals of every help which Mary required, from altering her ribbon to settling her accounts; from finding her keys, and assorting her trinkets, to trying to convince her that she was not ill-used by anybody; which Mary, well amused as she generally was, in her station at a window overlooking the entrance to the Pump Room, could not but have her moments of imagining.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Some attempts had been made, I noticed, to infuse new blood into this dwindling frame, by repairing the costly old wood-work here and there with common deal; but it was like the marriage of a reduced old noble to a plebeian pauper, and each party to the ill-assorted union shrunk away from the other.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)