classn.adj.

Brit.

/klɑːs/,

/klas/, U.S.

/klæs/

Forms: 1500s–1700s classe, 1600s– class.

Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly a borrowing from Latin. Etymons: French classe; Latin classis.

Etymology: < (i) Middle French, French classe class or division of the Roman people on the basis of property (a1359 in a translation of Livy), group of students or pupils who are taught together (1549), naval force, fleet (1559), lesson (1611; compare the earlier sense ‘classroom’ (1584)), and its etymon (ii) classical Latin classis class or division of the Roman people on the basis of property, body of citizens summoned for military service, naval force, fleet, division or category, division of pupils, band, group, squad, in scientific Latin also taxonomic category (1758 (in Linnaeus) or earlier), of unknown origin, perhaps an Etruscan loanword. Compare Catalan classe (1560), Spanish clase (c1400), Portuguese classe (1557 as †clace ), Italian classe (a1321 in sense ‘fleet’, 1623 in sense ‘group of similar objects’), also Dutch klasse (1591 as †classe ), German Klasse (late 16th cent. as †clas ; also †Classe ), Swedish klass (end of the 16th cent. as †class ), Danish klasse (17th cent. as †classe ). Compare classis n.A number of senses are not paralleled in French until later, e.g.: set or category of things differentiated according to grade or quality (1680), set or category of things or people having some property or attribute in common (1690), taxonomic category (1694 in biology), division or stratum of society consisting of people at the same economic level or having the same social status (1758), (colloquial or slang) high quality, distinction, refinement (1916). The original sense of classical Latin classis appears to have been ‘summons, call’. The word was associated by ancient writers with classical Latin calāre to call (see calends n.), but this is not generally accepted by modern etymologists. In early use, plural instances of the word are sometimes difficult to distinguish from the formally identical plural of classis n., e.g. in quot. 1567 at sense A. 1.

A. n.

I. Senses relating to groups, ranks, or categories.

1. Roman History. A group of Roman citizens who could meet a certain minimum wealth qualification; spec. each of the five groups into which property owners were divided for military service during the early Roman monarchy, supposedly introduced by Servius Tullius (578–535 b.c.).In the early modern period, Servius Tullius was widely held to have introduced six classes (see, e.g., quots. 1656, 1671, 1720).

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > distinction of class > level or grade > of Roman people

class1533

century1586

classis1601

1533 J. Bellenden tr. Livy Hist. Rome (1901) I. 93/2 How King Servicus..dividit his pepill in sindri classis and centuris.

1567 W. Painter Palace of Pleasure II. vi. f. 44^v He deuided the Romanes into. v. bands called Classes, and into Centurias, which be bandes of an hundred men.

1604 C. Edmondes Observ. Cæsars Comm. II. vi. i. 3 The people being deuided first into their Tribes, and then into their classes and centuries.

1656 T. Blount Glossographia at Classical He divided the Romans into six great Armies or Bands which he called Classes; The valuation of those in the first Classe was not under two hundred pounds.

1671 M. D'Assigny tr. P. Gautruche Poet. Hist. iii. vii. sig. Gg2 A Century was an hundred Men belonging to one of the six Classes, into which Servius Tullius divided the Roman People.

1720 J. Ozell et al. tr. R. A. de Vertot Hist. Revol. Rom. Republic I. i. 24 Servius divided this great Number into six Classes, composing each Class of divers Centuries of Foot.

1793 W. Russell Hist. Anc. Europe I. viii. 473 If centuries of the first class disagreed, those of the second, the third, and of other inferior classes, were called in to vote.

1823 T. De Quincey Lett. Young Man in London Mag. Mar. 333 Such a man was rated as to his income in the third class, such another in the fourth, and so on; but he who was in the highest was said emphatically to be of the class, ‘classicus’.

1866 New Englander (New Haven, Connecticut) July 415 The ‘comitia centuriata’ were called to vote by classes, according to their wealth.

1929 L. Homo Rom. Polit. Instit. ii. ii. 38 In accordance with this double principle, the citizens are distributed into Classes, and the Classes are divided into Centuries.

1999 A. W. Lintott Constit. Rom. Republic 57 Cicero argues that a single century from among his hypothetical 96, the bulk of classes 2 to 5, had almost more members than the whole first class.

a. A set or category of things having some related properties or attributes in common, grouped together, and differentiated from others under a general name or description; a kind, a sort.

ΘΚΠ

the world > relative properties > kind or sort > [noun] > a kind, sort, or class > a number of things classed together

class1583

coveya1592

parcel1607

batch1616

sisterhood1616

clan1667

band1690

set1690

lot1710

group1718

brotherhood1728

kit1785

package1947

1583 Sir T. Smith's De Republica Anglorum i. xxiv. 33 The fourth sort or classe amongest vs, is of those which the olde Romans called capite censij proletarij or operæ, day labourers, poore husbandmen, yea marchantes or retailers which haue no free lande, copiholders, and all artificers, as Taylers, Shoomakers, Carpenters, Brickemakers, Bricklayers, Masons, &c.

1608 Bp. J. King Serm. 5 Nov. 23 Both were transcendents not to be placed in the classes or rankes of hitherto experienced or practised wickednesse.

1664 J. Evelyn Kalendarium Hortense 82 in Sylva These [plants] we have distributed..into the three following classes.

1709 R. Steele Tatler No. 77. ⁋2 This Class of modern Wits I shall reserve for a chapter by itself.

1742 A. Pope New Dunciad 89 Whate'er of mungrel no one class admits, A Wit with dunces and a Dunce with wits.

1789 W. Belsham Ess. II. xli. 532 Civil incapacities affecting whole classes of citizens.

1818 S. T. Coleridge Friend (new ed.) i. vii. 83 The class of readers, to which he means to address his communications.

1835 A. Ure Philos. Manuf. 372 Comparing the wages paid to operatives of the different classes, sexes, and ages.

1870 G. Rolleston Forms Animal Life 132 A third nerve of the sympathetic class.

1926 F. B. Wiborg Printing Ink xx. 241 Special process inks are made for this class of printing.

1971 Daily Tel. 21 July 11/2 The normal carburettor-fed 2002 is one of the fastest cars in its class.

2006 P. Woit Not even Wrong xi. 159 Mathematicians may be divided into two classes; those who know and love Lie groups, and those who do not.

b. Originally: an inclusive or general taxonomic category into which species of living organism (and formerly of mineral substance) are grouped. Later (Biology): one ranking above order and below phylum or division; a group of this rank.In early use the class was often treated as the principal subdivision of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. Long disused in geology and mineralogy, it has retained its prominence as a principal rank in zoological taxonomy, but is less distinct and hence less important in botany, where some recent schemes do not assign ranks to plant taxa above the level of order.

ΘΚΠ

the world > life > biology > taxonomy > taxon > [noun] > class or sub-class

class1667

subclass1720

1667 Philos. Trans. 1665–6 (Royal Soc.) 1 364 In the Body of the Book, he enumerates all the Species, Alphabetically:..reducing them afterwards to certain Classes, hitherto used by Botanik Writers in their Histories of Plants.

1678 J. Ray in tr. F. Willughby Ornithol. Pref. sig. A4 Our principal aim in this Work..was..accurately to describe each Species, and to reduce all to their proper Classes or Genera.

a1728 J. Woodward Attempt Nat. Hist. Fossils Eng. (1729) I. 1 (heading) Class I. Earths, and Earthy Substances.

1753 Chambers's Cycl. Suppl. at Botany The knowledge of the classes, genera, species..of plants.

1791 T. Martyn tr. J. J. Rousseau Lett. Elements Bot. (ed. 3) ix. 84 (heading) Explanation of the Classes in the Linnæan System.

1807 T. Young Course Lect. Nat. Philos. I. lviii. 731 The class monadelphia contains a few plants similar to the mallow; they are known by the union of the filaments at their bases into a cylinder: those of the next class have generally nine united, and one separate, whence the class is named diadelphia.

1847 W. B. Carpenter Zool.: Systematic Acct. I. §8 The principal groups, or classes, are subdivided into others, termed orders.

1872 D. Oliver Lessons Elem. Bot. (new ed.) ii. §4. 125 The characters of a Class are common not only to its Subclasses and Divisions, but to the..Orders, Genera, and Species included in that Class.

1944 R. Matheson Entomol. for Introd. Courses ii. 20 The order Acarina of the class Arachnida contains a most heterogeneous mass of animal forms.

1992 M. Ingrouille Diversity & Evol. Land Plants 4 The Class Angiospermopsida, for all flowering plants, in Stace (1989) is identical to the Division Magnoliophyta in Cronquist (1981) and not his Class Magnoliopsida, which includes only the dicotyledons.

2004 New Scientist 11 Sept. 12/4 The genus Homo belongs to the family Hominidae, which is part of the order Primates, which in turn belongs to the class Mammalia.

c. Logic. A whole that consists of, or captures, all and only the entities satisfying a specified condition; spec. a collection of all the sets having a certain property.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > logic > logical classification > [noun] > a division, group, or class

general?a1425

genus1551

species1551

category1588

class1823

subcategory1842

tetrachotomya1856

1823 H. G. Ufford Elem. Treat. Logic ii. iii. 57 Animal embraces a more extensive class than bird, and bird a more extensive class than dove.

1843 J. S. Mill Syst. Logic I. i. v. §3 The proposition, Man is mortal, asserts, according to this view of it, that the class man is included in the class mortal.

1843 J. S. Mill Syst. Logic I. i.vii. §1. 160 By every general name which we introduce, we create a class, if there be any existing things to compose it.

1869 T. Fowler Elem. Deduct. Logic 64 We conceive that there is no limit to our power of making classes.

1932 M. H. Stone Linear Transformations in Hilbert Space i. 1 The word ‘space’ has gradually acquired a mathematical significance so broad that it is virtually equivalent to the word ‘class’, as used in logic.

1937 P. Bernays in Jrnl. Symbolic Logic 2 66 A set is a multitude forming a proper thing, whereas a class is a predicate regarded only with respect to its extension.

1953 S. K. Langer Introd. Symbolic Logic (ed. 2) v. 122 Now, there may be no wife of King Arthur; then there is simply nothing of that sort. That is the same as to say there is no element which is a member of that class. The class, therefore, is said to be empty, or to be a null class.

1958 A. Fraenkel & Y. Bar-Hillel Found. Set Theory ii. §6. 97 The appearance of antinomies which evolve from using overcomprehensive sets may be excluded through disallowing, by suitable axioms, the elementhood of the ‘dangerous’ sets. Those objects which cannot serve as members of other objects shall be called classes.

2002 Bull. Symbolic Logic 8 380 Every class of finite structures with a finite signature can be defined by an infinite set of sentences.

d. Sailing. Each of a number of categories or types of yacht differentiated on the basis of various characteristics of construction, esp. in order to ensure fair competition in races. Cf. rating n.¹ 4.

ΚΠ

1831 Sporting Mag. Oct. 466/2 At the termination of the match, the yachts in each class arrived at the goal as they are above arranged.

1858 Times 24 May 9/4 The prize for the best boat in this class was 50l.

1941 Sun (Baltimore) 20 Aug. 13/6 For the small-boat sailors races have been arranged in the following classes: Snipe, moth, penguin, winabout, Hampton.

1989 F. Davis Kohimarama 115 The American Frostbite Dinghy, a class in which very ‘keen’ American yachties raced in the winter.

1999 Canad. Yachting (Regatta Issue) June 9/3 Sailing events will be held July 25 to 31 at the Gimli Yacht Club. Classes that will be represented are Mistral, Laser, Laser Radial, Europe, Finn, Sunfish, Snipe, Hobie 16 and Lightning.

e. Geometry. A property of a curve defined by the number of tangents which can be drawn to the curve from an arbitrary external point; a category of curves so defined. Also: a corresponding property of a surface.

ΚΠ

1852 G. Salmon Treat. Higher Plane Curves iv. 203 The origin is a double point, and the curve is of the fourth class, and is the ‘limaçon de Pascal’.

1863 G. Salmon Conic Sections (ed. 4) x. 137 A conic is therefore a curve of the second degree and of the second class: but in higher curves the degree and class of a curve are commonly not the same.

1905 R. Hudson Kummer's Quartic Surface ii. 14 The number of nodes which a surface of order n can have is limited by its class.

1990 O. Bottema & B. Roth Theoret. Kinematics iv. 77 Its class being six means that six planes pass through an arbitrary point.

a. A set or category of things differentiated according to grade or quality; (in later use also) spec. each of the grades of accommodation, seating, or service provided for passengers on a journey by rail, sea, air, etc.Frequently with modifying word expressing the grade or ranking, the whole phrase often used adjectivally. club, economy, first, good-, high-, low-, second, third, world-class, etc.: see the first element.

ΘΚΠ

the world > relative properties > kind or sort > [noun] > a kind, sort, or class > according to quality

rank1558

class1616

alliance1674

quality1765

grade1807

first (second) chop1823

run1833

1616 B. Jonson Mercurie Vindicated in Wks. I. 1007 Call forth the creatures of the first classe, and let them moue to the harmony of our heat.

1645 D. North Forest of Varieties iii. 181 Farre more sublime and better Authours have discovered as little order, and as much repetition; witnesse the Collections of Marcus Aurelius, St. Augustines Confessions, and some of a higher Classe.

1694 R. Burthogge Ess. Reason 234 A Conjurer of the Highest Class.

1727 D. Defoe Conjugal Lewdness 199 It is not long since we had a publick Example of this, and that in the highest Class of Dignity.

1747 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 44 505 These are commonly called by Jewellers Occidental Stones: They are mostly the Produce of Europe..and are so named, in Opposition to those of a higher Class, which are always accounted Oriental.

1798 W. Jackson Four Ages 386 It is highly probable that the Greeks observed the near resemblance between the lowest class of human faces and monkeys.

1809 Times 19 May 2/3 The better class of inhabitants attacked and dispersed them.

1854 Brit. Farmer's Mag. 26 80/1 There was a large show of horses, and..those of a good class were not difficult to dispose of.

1879 G. A. Sala in Daily Tel. 26 Dec. Inability..to make up her mind as to what class she means to travel by.

1925 Brit. Weekly 19 Feb. 498/2 She was in the same class with the midinettes of Paris, with whom travelling Englishmen spend a passing hour and quickly forget.

1977 T. Murphy Famine i. i. 19 Bring out more food, Maeve. Call the fiddler. 'Tis a poor class of a wake ye're giving my daughter.

1998 B. Davis et al. Food & Beverage Managem. (ed. 3) i. 8 The in-flight catering service varies considerably with the class of travel.

2001 C. Whitehead John Henry Days i. 18 The interior of the car smells, not unpleasantly, of the better class of urinal cake.

(a) Each of a number of categories to which a ship is assigned by a classification society based on the quality and condition of its hull, often with ‘A’ denoting the highest category (cf. sense A. 5).The best-known classification system, that used historically by Lloyd's Register, put each hull into one of five classes, A, E, I, O, and U, with those in class A being of the highest quality, those in class U of the lowest. Cf. A1 adj. 1.

ΚΠ

1800 Reg. of Shipping 1801 (Key to Register-bk.) The Vessels marked A are of the First Class.

1860 Friend 7 May 278/2 Of the 10,548 vessels registered in Lloyd's book for the current year, we find 6218 are A1, or first-class, and but two are I, or the lowest class.

1902 W. W. Bates Amer. Navigation 305 In order to get cargoes that were bound to be covered by British insurance, it was necessary to hold a class of some grade in Lloyds Register.

1974 Mariner's Mirror 60 62 Length between perpendiculars 162... Class 100 A1.

2000 A. Antapassis in M. Huybrechts et al. Marine Insurance Turn Millennium II. 57 According to the technical standards each individual classification society stipulates, each ship so inspected is enrolled in a specific class.

(b) The category or designation granted by a classification society to a ship which is judged to comply with regulations on quality of construction, safety, etc. Frequently in in class.

ΚΠ

1868 Trans. Inst. Naval Architects 9 47 The shipbuilder..knows that if he is building an iron ship to class at Lloyd's, the weight of his ship will bear a certain proportion to the tonnage.

1875 Chronicle 19 Aug. 116/3 As regards the mode of ascertaining whether vessels can be kept in class, the British underwriters provide that a survey..shall take place every three years.

1921 Nauticus 26 Mar. 14/1 Many of the ex-German steamers sold require a considerable financial outlay to bring them up to Lloyd's class.

1957 Mariner's Mirror 43 16 At that date [sc. 1853] Lloyds had no rules or class for iron ships.

1999 A. D. Couper et al. Voy. of Abuse ii. 17 Classification societies have safety rules for construction and carrying out surveys to determine if a ship is still ‘in class’.

(a) A division or stratum of society consisting of people at the same economic level or having the same social status.Largely superseding order (order n. 7a). Frequently with modifying word expressing the ranking, as (in early use) higher, lower, (now more commonly) upper, middle, working (see the first element). See also peasant, professional, ruling, etc., at first element.In quot. 1583 at sense A. 2a class is used in the general sense but applied to social divisions, probably after sense A. 1.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > distinction of class > level or grade

mannishOE

placec1330

state1340

gree1382

conditionc1384

sectc1384

sortc1386

ordera1400

raff?a1400

degreea1425

countenancec1477

faction?1529

estate1530

race1563

calibre1567

being1579

coat1579

rang1580

rank1585

tier1590

classis1597

strain1600

consequence1602

regiment1602

sept1610

standinga1616

class1629

species1629

nome1633

quality1636

sort1671

size1679

situation1710

distinction1721

walk of life1733

walk1737

stage1801

strata1805

grade1808

caste1816

social stratum1838

station1842

stratum1863

echelon1950

1629 E. Bolton Cities Aduocate iii. 38 True it is, that Apprentiship, as it is a degree, so is it the lowest degree, or classe of men in London.

1631 J. Weever Anc. Funerall Monuments 687 To make vp the number, there are foure Pursuiuants in this Colledge, helpers and furtherers (likewise) in matters of Heraldry, although of an inferiour Classe.

1753 J. Nelson Ess. Govt. Children 306 I will select five Classes; viz. the Nobility, the Gentry, the genteel Trades,..the common Trades, and the Peasantry.

1762 O. Goldsmith Citizen of World I. xxxvii. 166 It was perhaps considered that crimes were more heinous among the higher classes of people.

1772 Hanway (title) Observations on the Causes of the Dissoluteness which reigns among the lower classes of the people.

1830 Decl. Birmingh. Pol. Union in Life T. Attwood (1885) x. 133 That the rights and interests of the middle and lower classes of the people are not efficiently represented in the Commons House of Parliament.

1856 R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits ix. 152 The habit of brag runs through all classes, from the Times newspaper..down to the boys of Eton.

1876 J. R. Green Short Hist. Eng. People (1882) iv. §4. 193 The tyranny of class over class.

1926 D. J. Saposs Readings in Trade Unionism vi. 93 (heading) As a traitor to his class, the ‘scab’ has no moral rights.

1970 C. T. Restrepo in I. L. Horowitz Masses in Lat. Amer. xiv. 517 Cultural ascent in society refers to the acquisition of those cultural forms corresponding to a higher class or social status.

2001 Times 28 Feb. ii. 3/4 It is the burden of the lower middle classes to keep the country running without taking any of the credit from the over-educated Oxbridge twits.

(b) A system of ordering society whereby people are divided into strata of this type; the pattern of social division created by such a system; a person's position in society as defined by this.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > system of

class1804

caste1816

caste system1816

social ladder1817

casteism1852

class system1877

classhood1878

pecking order1935

status system1939

peck order1950

1804 R. Jackson Systematic View Formation, Discipline & Econ. Armies 34 The foundations, and even some perfection of military qualities, as belonging to man individually, result from the peculiar properties of class or race, [etc.].

1845 B. Disraeli Sybil II. iv. viii. 247 Walled out from sympathy by prejudices and convictions more impassable than all the mere consequences of class.

1887 T. Fowler Princ. Morals ii. ii. 99 An intense feeling of class or caste.

1928 G. B. Shaw Intell. Woman's Guide Socialism lxx. 337 By paying the director more than the directee it creates a difference of class between them.

1973 P. F. Lazarsfeld Main Trends in Sociol. iii. 40 There are basic concepts, such as class and mode of production.

1989 Third Text Summer 6 Cricket is a contemptible upper-class English game, one for the imbeciles and the chinless wonders, riddled with class and with racial prejudice.

2005 D. Kendall Framing Class i. 3 I am not suggesting that class is more important than race or gender in studying inequality.

b. South Asian. = caste n. 2a. Cf. backward class n. at backward adv., adj., and n.² Additions.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > distinction of class > level or grade > a Hindu caste

castea1624

class1794

varna1883

1794 W. Jones tr. Inst. Hindu Law 265 For a Súdra is ordained a wife of his own class.

1815 Monthly Mag. Jan. 631/1 The fourth or Sudra class, whose business was voluntarily to serve for hire.

1882 Contributor Feb. 139/1 The highest status of this union was the offspring of a Brahman with a woman belonging to the Kshatrya class.

1901 Jrnl. Anthropol. Soc. Bombay 5 87 The Brahmin class seems to have proceeded on the same lines.

2002 P. Jaideva Dalits in Early Buddhism i. 12 The Vaiśya class, the commoners, must have been naturally very large.

c. In plural. With the. The rich or educated. Usually opposed to the masses. Now somewhat archaic.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social class > nobility > aristocracy or upper class > [noun] > distinct from the masses

class1886

1886 W. E. Gladstone in Pall Mall Gaz. 3 May 11/2 Station, title, wealth, social influence..in a word, the spirit and power of class..The adverse host, then, consists of class, and the dependents of class..On these and many other great issues the classes have fought uniformly on the wrong side, and have uniformly been beaten.

1887 Punch 10 Sept. 111/1 Gladstone's gab about ‘masses and classes’ is all tommy rot.

1900 Harper's Weekly 24 Mar. 274/1 One saleslady..was made to declare that this beautiful deed of benevolence was calculated to bring the classes and the masses together again.

1936 N.Y. Woman 23 Sept. 22/3 The foregoing has been pretty much concerned with the potential sashayings of the classes. Now what do we find casting a blood-shot, iridium eye on the masses?

2003 Globe & Mail (Canada) (Nexis) 1 Nov. f2 For him, much of life was still about the class struggle, the masses against the classes.

a. gen. Each of a series of sets or categories which are denoted by letters of the alphabet, often with ‘A’ denoting the first or highest of such a series, descending through other letters. Frequently attributive. Cf. class A adj.

ΚΠ

1791 Bee 28 Dec. 295 Let those comprehended in the class A, be the richest; those in the class B, the second; and so on.

1816 Literary Panorama Mar. 882 The Treaties marked Class A are Treaties of Accession and Subsidy... The Treaties marked Class B are Commercial and other Treaties.

1885 Proc. Royal Soc. 39 321 A system of awarding marks to class A watches, indicating the degree of relative efficiency exhibited during trial, was adopted.

1936 Boxers' Bull. Aug. 6/1 Class A. and Class B. referee certificates are awarded in an unsatisfactory fashion... There is little apparent reason to think that merit alone is the deciding factor.

1955 Archaeol. News Let. 6 15 Classes A and C should be known as ‘necked beakers’.

1991 Baseball Illustr. 27 51/3 Rookie catcher Ivan Rodriguez played well at instructional league and could jump this season from Class A to the majors.

1998 N.Y. Times 7 May c24/3 (advt.) Smaller tenants have a lot of choice downtown if they don't need to be in Class ‘A’ space... There are still a lot of great opportunities in Class ‘B’ buildings.

b. In fire protection and firefighting: each of a number of categories of fire distinguished by the material involved and denoted by letters, ‘A’ being the most common, involving an ordinary combustible solid (rather than a flammable liquid or gas, live electrical equipment, etc.).Apart from class A and class D (fires involving combustible metals), the designations used in the United States differ from those used in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australasia.

ΚΠ

1929 U.S. Patent 1,700,465 1/1 On fires known as class 'A' fires (Underwriters' Laboratory Classification)..powder is unable, most of the time, to kill the embers.

1972 McGraw-Hill Yearbk. Sci. & Technol. 1971 5/2 A class C fire is any fire in which energized electrical equipment is involved.

1985 Rec. 18th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conf. 1164/1 The paper summarizes..flammability failure mechanisms, time-temperature profiles, and results of..environmental exposure tests of a candidate material suitable for both Class B and Class A fire-resistance levels.

1992 Harrowsmith Oct. 40/1 Because the powder does not penetrate below the burning surface to extinguish deepseated embers in a mattress fire, for example, plain tap water (the ingredient in an A-rated extinguisher) will do a better job on most class A fires than will an ABC unit.

2006 Fire Safety Risk Assessment : Offices & Shops (H.M. Govt.) ii. iii. 58/1 Typically for the Class A fire risk, the provision of one water-based extinguisher..will normally be adequate.

c. Electronics. Each of a number of types of amplifier or modes of amplifier operation, designated by capital letters and distinguished by the relationship between input and output. Frequently attributive.In class A amplifiers, the base bias of a transistor, or the grid bias of a valve, is set such that there is an output current throughout the signal cycle and the output waveform is substantially the same as the input waveform. Class B and class C amplifiers operate on only half the input waveform, gaining in efficiency but producing greater distortion. Class AB amplifiers operate on more than half the input waveform but not all of it. More recently further classes have been devised.

ΚΠ

1933 U.S. Patent 1,910,515 2/2 The tube being biased by a battery to operate over a linear portion of its mutual characteristic (as a class A amplifier).

1936 R. S. Glasgow Princ. Radio Engin. vii. 145 Class B operation is characterized by larger power output and higher efficiency than Class A. A Class C amplifier is one in which high output is the primary consideration and is employed only in radio transmitters.

1952 E. Armitage Wireless Fund. ix. 167 The advantage of Class B amplification is that the steady anode current flowing through the circuit when the valve is quiescent is very much smaller than under Class A conditions.

1978 Gramophone Apr. 1790/1 Sony offered the first class D (pulse width modulation) power amplifier.

1988 T. H. O'Dell Electronic Circuit Design ix. 142 High efficiency must always be associated with a rather narrow bandwidth,..and such narrow bandwidth power amplifiers have become classified as class C, D, E, F, G, H and S.

1998 Gramophone Jan. 145 (advt.) Simply Four's 24 watts of single-ended class A pentode power gives ample driving ability for almost all loudspeakers.

2006 D. Self Audio Power Amplifier Design Handbk. (ed. 4) xi. 319 Since the first edition of this book, Class-D amplifiers have increased enormously in popularity.

d. U.S. Law. In some states: each of a number of categories of criminal offences typically followed by a letter denoting their level of seriousness, where ‘A’ represents those offences considered to be the most serious.

ΚΠ

1964 Columbia Law Rev. 64 1474 A period of probation may be imposed upon conviction of any crime other than a Class A felony.

1971 Hartford (Connecticut) Courant 2 Oct. 13/1 The new code lists felonies in four lettered classes, A through D.

1982 Black Belt Jan. 21/3 The state of New York passed a law making possession of nunchaku a class D misdemeanor.

1996 W. Clarkson Deadly Seduction xvi. 218 The penalties for murder, a class-A felony, were thirty to sixty years in prison.

2007 J. Connolly Unquiet 201 Terrorizing was a Class D, and harassment was a Class E.

e. British. Each of a number of categories of illegal drugs typically followed by a letter denoting their level of toxicity as specified by the United Kingdom government, where ‘A’ represents those drugs considered to be the most harmful, and whose unlawful sale or possession carries the highest penalties.The relevant legislation is the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.

ΚΠ

1970 Times 12 Mar. 1/3 For possession of a class A drug like heroin the maximum sentence will be seven years or an unlimited fine, or both.

1979 Economist 28 July 24/3 For the unlawful possession of these drugs, the maximum penalty is five years' imprisonment, compared with seven years for the unlawful possession of class A drugs—cocaine, the opiates and LSD.

1986 Guardian (Nexis) 26 Sept. The increase in total seizures was entirely accounted for by ‘soft’, class B drugs.

1997 Sunday Times (Nexis) 12 Oct. Hellawell has been told not to stray from the government's tough line on all classes of illegal drugs.

2001 S. Walton Out of It (2002) v. 167 Britain has classified cocaine as Class A and has recently downgraded cannabis from Class B to Class C.

6. British. A division of candidates according to merit in a university examination for an honours degree. Also (chiefly Oxford University): an honours degree (now rare). Frequently opposed to pass.In most universities successful candidates are now divided into three classes, with the second class further divided into upper and lower: see first class adj. 2a, second class n., etc.

ΘΚΠ

the world > relative properties > kind or sort > [noun] > a kind, sort, or class > according to merit

class1807

1807 E. Tatham Addr. to Convoc. Oxf. 15 In regard to the Schedule of the Three Classes, and particularly in regard to the First Class, there may be different opinions.

1839 D. Urquhart Spirit of East II. xviii. 174 That portion of each of these sciences which a man, reading for a class at Oxford, would have to study.

1860 M. Burrows Pass & Class (1866) 29 What particular class a man has obtained.

1863 London Univ. Cal., First B.A. 51 In the course of the following week the Examiners shall publish a list of the Candidates..arranged in three Classes, according to their respective degrees of proficiency.

1916 R. Bridges Let. 18 Jan. (1984) 698 He took his class at Oxford just when war was declared.

1927 C. E. Mallet Hist. Univ. Oxf. III. xxiii. 170 In 1830, a Fourth Class in Honours was provided, and the Honours examination was separated from the examination for the ordinary Pass degree.

1999 Nouse Mar. 3/1 The student in question will have his degree class reduced by one class.

a. High quality; outstanding ability or distinction; elegance or refinement of style, taste, or manner. Cf. sense B. Frequently somewhat colloquial.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > goodness and badness > quality of being good > excellence > [noun]

goodnessOE

mund?c1250

daintethc1290

bountyc1300

daintyc1300

excellencec1384

virtuea1393

excellency?a1400

nobilitya1400

meritc1425

singularity?c1450

fineness1523

admirationa1533

rareness1545

rightness1561

rariety1566

rarity1566

excellentness1569

beautya1586

admirableness1607

primeness1611

gallantry1650

eximiety1656

optimity1656

altesse1660

unexceptionableness1669

excellingness1701

quality1803

sterlingness1815

stupendosity1828

goodliness1832

superbness1832

unexceptionability1837

sweetness and light1867

class1884

rortiness1885

rippingness1903

superstardom1928

motherfucker1977

awesomeness1998

1884 Referee 24 Mar. 1/3 The elasticity necessary for anything like class at sprinting departs comparatively early.

1912 McClure's Mag. Feb. 28/2 ‘That old guy needs special treatment,’ he reflected, ‘and those simps ain't got class enough to give it.’

1935 F. Marion Valley People xiii. 251 Say, there wasn't a dining-room in the Ladies' Home Journal that could touch it for real class.

1978 E. Chappell Rising Damp Compl. Scripts (2002) iv. v. 513/1 You've got class. I like the way you chassé around—the way you move like a Swiss clock.

1997 ‘Q’ Deadmeat 17 I chose Eau Sauvage by Christian Dior because it was French, exciting, it had a touch of class.

b. no class and variants: of no worth; of low quality, inferior.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > attention and judgement > importance > unimportance > [noun] > one who is unimportant > worthless > collectively

garbage1648

trash1750

worthless1758

no class1897

1897 Daily Tel. June in J. R. Ware Passing Eng. Victorian Era (1909) 182/2 Soldiers! Why, soldiers ain't no class.

1927 R. Rees Life's what you make It xii. 161 I'm not ‘much class’.

1927 R. Rees Life's what you make It xii. 162 I am ‘no class’.

1969 A. Hunter Gently Coloured iv. 52 I'm no class, I know that. I'm where I belong, a working policeman.

1996 Conjunctions Nov. 342 He tell Berry..I ain't no class for he.

c. Originally U.S. Horse Racing. With the. The best of a group of competitors. Frequently in the class of the field.

ΚΠ

1898 Chicago Tribune 21 July 4/1 Our Gertie was the best and in a safe spot. She was by far the class of the field.

1904 Morning Telegraph Racing Chart Bk. Aug. 77 Albert Fir was the class of the lot; outrun in the beginning, he closed fast at the end and won going away.

1922 Railwayan Sept. 10/1 With such sterling players..in the line-up the White Sox proved to be the class of the league.

1942 Billboard 14 Feb. 77/2 The two-way and the four-way models have proved to be the class of the field.

1966 Amer. Motorcycling Apr. 34/3 Yoshio Itoh on his 50cc Suzuki was the class of the under 100cc group.

2006 Rowing News Nov. 37/3 The Serbian crew were the class of the field and easily won the race.

8. Immunology. Each of three categories of protein encoded by genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and denoted by Roman numerals. Usually attributive, designating these proteins or the genes which code for them.Class I molecules, found in most nucleated mammalian cells, are polymorphic proteins which continually present peptide fragments at the cell surface, where any viral or other non-self antigens can be recognized by cytotoxic T cells. Class II molecules act similarly in phagocytic cells of the immune system, presenting fragments of engulfed proteins for recognition by T helper cells. Class III molecules include various serum proteins involved in the complement system.

ΚΠ

1977 J. Klein in D. Götze Major Histocompatibility Syst. Man & Animals x. 340 The term class, in reference to the MHS [= major histocompatibility system], is introduced here for the first time. The products of different classes differ in their biochemical properties, phenotypic expression, and function. Three major classes..have been recognized so far. I shall designate them simply class I, class II, and class III.

1984 M. J. Taussig Processes in Pathol. & Microbiol. (ed. 2) ii. 182 Class II molecules are involved in cellular interactions (immunoregulation) as well as in recognition of antigen by T cells.

1986 New Eng. Jrnl. Med. 22 May 1360/2 Such differences at Class I genes do not influence the diabetogenicity of these chromosomes, suggesting that the actual diabetogenic genes are within the Class II region.

2007 Nature 6 Dec. 799/2 The highly variable HLA genes are clustered in two loci..in the MHC region on chromosome 6... They encode two classes of proteins: the HLA class I and the HLA class II molecules.

II. Senses relating to the instruction of students.

a. A group of students or pupils who are taught together.In later use relating to schools usually denoting each of a number of subdivisions of all the pupils who are at the same stage, in contrast with (in the United Kingdom) form or year, or (in North America) grade.

ΘΚΠ

society > education > learning > learner > [noun] > group of students or pupils

class1560

siege1566

classis1643

reading party1781

lecture1848

study circle1882

seminar1889

study group1892

masterclass1901

1560 J. Knox et al. Buke Discipline in J. Knox Wks. (1848) II. 214 In the secound colledge, in the first classe, one reader onlie in the ethicques, oeconomicques and politiques.

1585 W. Creichton Let. in True & Plaine Declar. of Horrible Treasons W. Parry 23 Beeing returned out of the Closse within one of the classes of the Colledge, hee proponed to me of new the matter, with his reasons and arguments.

1631 J. Shirley Schoole of Complement iii. ii. 36 Sir, I receiue your sonne, and will wind vp his ingeny, feare it not, but first he must be vnder my Vsher, who must teach him the postures of his body, how to make legs and cringes, and then he shall bee aduanced to a higher Classe.

1697 D. Defoe Ess. Projects 265 Every School to have 10 Classes of 10 each.

1730 J. Clarke Ess. Educ. Youth (ed. 2) 209 The Boys of the upper Classes may be admitted.

1768 Adventures Oxymel Classic I. xxiii. 235 The 'squire had already taken up his station very peaceably at the rear of his class for six weeks.

1828 E. Bulwer-Lytton Pelham I. ii. 11 I was in the head class when I left Eton.

1875 Edinb. Univ. Cal. 1875–6 68 Examinations on the work done in the Class.

1887 Proc. 11th Convent. Amer. Instructors of Deaf 236 I will go around the class..never looking at the children, because I might read their lips.

1912 T. E. Lawrence Lett. (1938) 144 I took a class of four (including our Commissaire) in local history.

1954 G. Willans How to be Topp vii. 75 It is a good wheeze then if you have a real Fr. boy in the class. Then you sa innocently What is it like in France, sir?

1992 I. Pattison More Rab C. Nesbitt Scripts 138 Teacher..(He looks around the class and sees a girl. ) You girl! Clean the board!

b. An occasion when pupils meet with their teacher for instruction; the instruction given on such an occasion, a lesson; (frequently in plural) a course of instruction.In later use frequently without article as the object of a preposition, as in class.art, Bible, biology, dancing-class, etc.: see the first element.

ΘΚΠ

society > education > teaching > means of teaching > [noun] > class or course

course1605

discipline1676

class1691

curriculum1824

cursus1875

1691 A. Wood Athenæ Oxonienses I. 80 He went through the usual classes of Logick and Philosophy with unwearied industry.

1764 Rep. State Warrington Acad. 2 In the Latin class the classics are read.

1825 Wardrop in M. Baillie's Wks. I. Life 9 He there attended the Greek and Latin classes during the first two seasons.

1859 H. S. Reid Rep. State Pop. Educ. North Western Provinces 11 All teaching classes in English, as well as in Sanskrit.

1893 Educ. Rev. May 423 His up-to-dateness..in the right view of handling history in class.

1937 Life 1 Nov. 43/2 The students who tote green cloth bags filled with books up the steps of Langdell Hall..and go to classes in Austin Hall.

1945 N. Streatfeild Saplings l. 241 He flared up and argued about anything. He even did it in class.

1987 J. Wheatcroft Beholder's Eye 240 She was late for class. But she didn't hurry.

1992 M. Anderson Impostors in Temple i. 25 During this time I have taught classes and seminars, supervised doctoral dissertations,..eaten at many faculty clubs.

2000 A. Bourdain Kitchen Confid. (2001) 38 I took classes in food-handling, egg cookery, salads, stocks, soups, basic knifework.

10. Originally and chiefly North American. All of the students at a university, college, or school of a particular year, who matriculate at the same date and typically graduate together. Frequently followed by of and the year of graduation. Also in extended use.

ΘΚΠ

society > education > learning > learner > college or university student > [noun] > division containing all students of same year

class1672

year1809

1672 S. Sewall Let. 16 Mar. in Let.-bk. (1886) I. 19 Remember me kindly to all our Class.

1684 in Harvard College Rec. (1925) I. 77 Mr. Samuel Mitchell was..desired to undertake ye charge of ye class of ye Sophimores untill further order.

1766 T. Clap Ann. Yale-Coll. 14 The Senior Class were removed to Milford... The rest of the Students were removed to Saybrook.

1798 A. Holmes Life Ezra Stiles 65 In February, 1756, he addressed a letter to the senior class, at Yale College.

1828 Harvard Reg. 1827–8 (advt.) In August 1827 the editorial department was entrusted to three gentlemen of the class of 1828.

1833 B. Peirce Hist. Harvard Univ. App. xiii. 56 The following is the first class of Harvard College, as it stands in the catalogue: 1642. Benjamin Woodbridge,..Georgius Downing,..Johannes Bulkley, [etc.].

1882 R. H. Stoddard in H. W. Longfellow Poet. Wks. (rev. ed.) p. x It was a remarkable class in which he found himself, for it contained..Nathaniel Hawthorne, George B. Cheever, and J. S. C. Abbott.

1887 J. E. Cabot Mem. Emerson 62 The class of 1821 [sc. Emerson's] held for fifty years its annual reunion at Cambridge.

1931 H. F. Pringle Theodore Roosevelt II. ix. 381 Meyer..had been a class ahead of him at Harvard.

1959 Tech (Mass. Inst. Technol.) 8 Dec. 1 Attention, Class of '62, Victors of Field Day, '59, Hackers of MIT—Become Aware. Like a Sour Hour for Sophomores at Sammy house.

1976 Times 17 Dec. 30/3 Labour's class of '71 was..a gentrified council, dominated by professional people from Putney rather than people from the working-class areas.

2003 N.Y. Times 2 July a18/2 As the valedictorian of the class of 2003, he had so many people to thank.

III. In other senses derived directly from the Latin.

†11. A fleet, a navy; (also) a ship. Obsolete. rare.

ΘΚΠ

society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > [noun]

shipc725

beamOE

boardOE

bargea1300

steera1300

vessela1300

treea1382

loomc1400

man1473

ark1477

bottom1490

keela1547

riverboat1565

craft1578

pine1592

class1596

flood-bickerer1599

pitchboard1599

stern-bearer1599

wooden horse1599

wooden isle1603

water treader?1615

water house1616

watercraft1618

machine1637

prore1642

lightman1666

embarkation1690

bark1756

prowa1771

Mudian1813

bastiment1823

hooker1823

nymph1876

M.F.V.1948

society > armed hostility > hostilities at sea > navy > a naval force or fleet > [noun]

fleeta1000

floteOE

ship-ferda1122

navya1382

armyc1475

armada1533

class1596

naval1627

armadilla1685

Grand Fleet1696

armament1698

maritime power1711

1596 J. Dalrymple tr. J. Leslie Hist. Scotl. (1888) I. 202 He furnissed a meruellous classe, quhilke to the sey he sett ladne with a multitude innumerable of men of armes.

1656 T. Blount Glossographia Classe (classis), a ship, or Navy.

12. Christian Church.

†a. Chiefly Scottish. In the Presbyterian system: a classis; a presbytery. Obsolete.

ΘΚΠ

society > faith > church government > ecclesiastical discipline > court > presbyterian > [noun] > presbytery

eldership1557

seniory1572

presbytery1581

classis1591

consistorya1593

class1644

colloquya1672

colloque1846

elderhood1860

1644 S. Rutherford Due Right of Presbyteries 424 Mr. Mather and Mr. Thomson against Herle, c. 2. p. 17. 18. say we do much Judaizein that we multiply appeales upon appeales, from the Congregation to a Classe, then to a Synod, then to a nationall assembly, then to an œcumenick councell.

1661 J. Gauden Pillar of Gratitude 7 No way subject either to the Papal Triple Crown, or to the hundred Eyes of any Presbyterian Class, nor yet to the hundred Hands of any Independent Junto.

1766 Declar. Presbytery Ballymena 1/2 We declare that the first Appearance which the above-named John Murray made among us in Character of a Preacher was the latter End of June 1761, he having preached for one of our Members, upon the Authority of a Licence that he produced from a Class of Ministers in Northumberland.

1785 T. Warton in J. Milton Poems (new ed.) 327 (note) The city of London being distributed into twelve classes, each class chose two ministers and four lay-elders, to represent them in a Provincial Assembly.

1838 Sc. Christian Herald 3 199/1 The Class, or Presbytery, consisted of all the ministers and several of the elders within the bounds.

b. A subdivision of a Methodist congregation, meeting together under the direction of a class leader.

ΘΚΠ

society > faith > church government > laity > congregation > [noun] > Methodist subdivision

class1742

1742 J. Wesley Jrnl. 15 Feb. (1872) II. 528 It was at length agreed..that the whole society should be divided into little companies or classes—about twelve in each class.

1791 J. Hampson Mem. J. Wesley III. 82 Each society is divided into companies of ten or fifteen, called classes; each of which regularly meets the leader once a week.

1857 Christian Misc. 176/1 I invited him to my class.

1885 Minutes Wesleyan Conf. 361 The Quarterly visitation of the Classes is our most important official work.

1928 H. K. Rowe Mod. Pathfinders of Christianity x. 119 To pay for the new building every Methodist class underwrote the scheme with a pledge of a penny a week per member.

2000 D. Andrews Methodists & Revolutionary Amer. 1760–1800 i. i. 35 As increasing numbers of British migrants poured into North America in the late 1760s, it was only a matter of time before a British Wesleyan ‘discovered’ the various classes and societies now meeting in Wesley's name.

13. Cambridge University. = classis n. 4. Now rare.Plural examples are typically indistinguishable from those of classis, early examples of which may possibly indicate a slightly earlier date for class.

ΘΚΠ

society > communication > book > library or collection of books > library, place, or institution > [noun] > stall, stack, or shelf in library

classis1631

interclassis1678

class1686

stall1709

open shelf1821

stack1879

1686 in R. Willis & J. W. Clark Archit. Hist. Univ. Cambr. (1886) III. 399 He shall place and keep every book in its respective Classis, and in the proper place of that Class. He shall..cause..the Classes together with the Books be cleansed from Dust once a month.

1818 in R. Willis & J. W. Clark Archit. Hist. Univ. Cambr. (1886) I. 114 That the shelves in the Classes..be newly arranged..and the Classes cleaned and varnished.

1886 R. Willis & J. W. Clark Archit. Hist. Univ. Cambr. II. 750 There are also shelves against the walls between the end of each class and the windows.

1901 J. W. Clark Care of Bks. 243 The word ‘class’ (classis) is used..instead of the ancient ‘stall’... Gradually the term was extended until it reached its modern signification, namely the shelves under a given window together with those on the sides of the bookcases to the right and left of the spectator facing it.

B. adj.

Ranking in the top class; showing impressive stylishness in appearance, performance, or behaviour; classy.In early use chiefly of racehorses or athletes, esp. in not class enough.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > goodness and badness > quality of being good > excellence > [adjective] > very excellent or first-rate

gildenc1225

prime1402

rare1483

grand1542

holy1599

pre-excelling1600

paregal1602

classic1604

of (the) first rate1650

solary1651

first rate1674

superb1720

tip-top1722

tip-top-gallant1730

swell1819

topping1822

of the first (also finest, best, etc.) water1826

No. 11829

brag1836

A11837

A No. 11838

number one1839

awful1843

bully1851

first class1852

class1867

champion1880

too1881

tipping1887

alpha plus1898

bonzer1898

grade A1911

gold star1917

world-ranking1921

five-star1936

too much1937

first line1938

vintage1939

supercolossal1947

top1953

alpha1958

fantabulous1959

beauty1963

supercool1965

world-class1967

primo1973

1867 Edinb. Evening Courant 8 Nov. Salamanca is in the same stable, but he is not class enough to win such a handicap.

1872 Times 18 Mar. 7/2 Scots Grey and Stella are not class enough to win.

1874 Hotten's Slang Dict. (rev. ed.) 119 Class, the highest quality or combination of highest qualities among athletes. ‘He's not class enough’, i.e., not good enough. ‘There's a deal of class about him’, i.e., a deal of quality.

1924 H. de Sélincourt Cricket Match ii. 26 If he'd had coaching, he'd be a class bowler.

1927 Chambers's Jrnl. 4/1 She [sc. a filly] arrowed over her hurdles like the ‘class’ young lady that she was.

1954 ‘N. Blake’ Whisper in Gloom i. iii. 40 It was a class neighbourhood, thought Foxy, surveying the elegant, freshly-painted houses.

1989 W. Deverell Mindfield 91 The Lord Swinburne was class. You get the typical guy, a drink and a little poke before confronting the wife over dinner; she's pleased because he smells so clean, he must have stopped off at his health club. The Lord Swinburne—private spa for gentlemen.

2004 Rugby World Feb. 40/2 I had ten minutes against him in the match last August and he is a class player.

Phrases

P1. top (also head) of the class: (chiefly with the) the rank or position of the best student in a school class; also in extended use.

ΚΠ

1781 V. Knox Liberal Educ. 26 The boy of an ingenious mind, who stands at the head of his class, ranks, in the microcosm of a school, as a hero.

1796 Sun 9 Sept. 4/1 The teachers promote emulation in the usual way, by making the top of the class the post of honour.

1825 J. Bentham Rationale Reward 20 He who stands at the head of the class begins the exercise.

1899 J. M. Mitchell In W. India 314 You clever boys are near the top of the class.

1939 Pop. Sci. Monthly Mar. 14/1 If you can solve this one in fifteen seconds flat, go to the head of the class.

2005 S. Whiteside tr. ‘W. Ming’ 54 55 He does it just because that's what he's like, he always wants to be top of the class.

P2. in a class of one's own: in an unequalled or unique position; unsurpassed, esp. in excellence or performance. Cf. in a league of one's own at league n.² Additions.

ΚΠ

1819 T. Roebuck Ann. College of Fort William 198 His superiority is such as to rank him in truth in a separate class of his own; and he has left both his contemporary competitors, and every Student of Arabic at a distance.

1853 T. De Quincey Ess. on Poets 3 Their merit in fact is not only supreme but unique; not only supreme in their general class, but unique as in a class of their own.

1938 Times 21 Oct. 18/1 (advt.) Its delicious flavour, and its freedom from deleterious ingredients, place it in a class of its own.

1977 Economist (Nexis) 26 Mar. 132 The New Yorker's film critic..is in a class of her own... She is a born writer, whose prose comes pinging from the page as if mere words can barely keep up with her.

2006 Athletics Weekly 14 Dec. 28/2 He was in a class of his own before Stuttgart but now I know he is human and he can be beaten.

Compounds

C1. Compounds of the noun.

a. General attributive.

(a) In sense A. 4.

(i) With sense ‘of or relating to social class; relating to particular social classes, esp. the upper classes’.

class consideration n.

ΚΠ

1841 Metropolitan July 88 This is..a class consideration, and every class, or rather every representation of a class, argues the question well for the interest of the advocated section of the community.

1926 Times 28 Oct. 5/7 Class considerations were, in these days, apt to be brought in by workpeople just as they used to be brought in by the landed gentry.

2000 B. V. Lal Fiji before Storm i. 3 Class considerations and regional interests feature more prominently in Fijian political calculations than most outsiders often realise.

class dialect n.

ΚΠ

1861 F. M. Müller Lect. Sci. Lang. ii. 55 Class dialects, too, would spring up; the dialects of servants, grooms, shepherds, and soldiers.

1930 J. R. Firth Speech viii. 62 Standard English, on the other hand, is a class dialect; to adapt Lord Chesterfield, it is the ‘usage of the best companies’.

2005 G. Jones in P. B. Messent & L. J. Budd Compan. M. Twain 133 In this sense, German behaves like one of Twain's many class dialects: it reveals and contains the intellectual culture of its speaker.

class education n.

ΚΠ

1841 Northern Star 18 Sept. 2/3 The obstacles were held to be..prejudice, class legislation, and class education.

1923 A. Huxley Antic Hay 33 It won't be the owning of a little money that'll get a man into trouble. It'll be his class-habits, his class speech, his class-education.

2005 in J. Russo & S. L. Linkon New Working-Class Stud. iv. xiv. 232 In the formative days of industrial unionism an analytical class education went hand-in-hand with building strong unions.

class grievance n.

ΚΠ

1841 Morning Chron. 14 Dec. The Corn-laws are not a class grievance. Their repeal is not a class interest.

1853 C. Dickens Bleak House vii. 58 The turkey..always troubled with a class-grievance (probably Christmas).

2006 Independent (Nexis) 31 July 27 Mrs Thatcher, a devout monarchist, had no class grievances.

class interest n.

ΚΠ

1828 J. S. Mill in Westm. Rev. 9 255 Party interests, and class interests..appear to influence the train of events.

1920 B. Russell Pract. & Theory Bolshevism IV. 155 The Government has a..class-interest quite distinct from those of the genuine proletarian.

2000 Out Mar. 104/2 Representing queerness usually means representing the class interests of white men.

class journal n.

ΚΠ

1858 P. L. Simmonds Dict. Trade Products Pref. p. iv As the city editor of a daily paper, and contributing largely to many class journals, I especially felt the want of a work of easy reference, defining the moneys, weights, and measures of the foreign countries with which we are engaged in trade.

1888 Pall Mall Gaz. 4 May 11/2 The class journals..classify and concentrate all the news that affects a particular trade for the benefit of those engaged therein.

1909 Amer. Hist. Rev. 14 434 Class journals now give much that was once in the daily.

2007 O. S. Buckton Cruising with R. L. Stevenson 102 Significant among such ‘class journals’ were the magazines designed for young readers, including James Henderson's Young Folks (founded 1871), in which Stevenson published three of his novels.

class legislation n.

ΚΠ

1838 Northern Liberator 27 Oct. Mr Taunton followed, and witheringly denounced class legislation.

1856 R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits iv. 56 Bitter class-legislation.

2004 J. F. Witt Accidental Republic vi. 160 It was the judiciary—warriors against the encroachments of combination, class legislation, and paternalism—that would rescue the principles on which the republic rested.

class position n.

ΚΠ

1840 Rep. Assistant Hand-loom Weavers' Commissioners iv. Index p. x Comforts proportionate to their class position as lowly-skilled labourers.

1915 Boilermakers' Jrnl. May 362/1 The workers as a class understand their ‘class position’ in human society.

2008 M. Pattillo in A. Lareau & D. Conley Social Class 285 The use of class position to exclude individuals who are poor is a crucial pattern in neighborhoods.

class privilege n.

ΚΠ

1837 Brighton Patriot 10 Oct. Nor is any good to be expected until a voice in the representation is recognised as a common right, instead of being manufactured into a class privilege.

1956 J. B. Wilson Lang. & Pursuit of Truth ii. 57 Men make..protests against particular types of privilege..for instance, against class-privilege.

2006 S. Sullivan Revealing Whiteness 12 A product of male and class privilege, middle-class white women's self-abnegation is often an ideal tool for the furthering of white privilege.

class status n.

ΚΠ

1849 Eliza Cook's Jrnl. 1 Dec. 65/2 A man, once having taken his class status, must run all risks to keep it up.

1943 D. G. Haring Blood on Rising Sun ix. 181 Clothing was prescribed according to class status.

2005 Vanity Fair (N.Y.) Oct. 200/2 People whose very class status was heretofore involved with reading a broadsheet turn out to have no qualms at all about a tab.

class structure n.

ΚΠ

1909 Muscatine (Iowa) Jrnl. 1 Oct. 2/3 Thursday, Oct. 21.—O. C. Wilson, subject, The class structure of capitalist society.

1958 P. Shore in N. Mackenzie Conviction 51 In spite of war-socialism and the Attlee Government..the class structure seems as strong as it ever was.

2005 New Internationalist July 25/2 Japanese feudal society left a class structure that placed ‘humble people’ at the bottom.

class variety n.

ΚΠ

1843 T. C. Haliburton Attaché xv. 40/1 You have class variety here [sc. in England], but no individuality. They are insipid, and call it perlite. The men dress alike, talk alike, and look as much alike as Providence will let 'em.

2001 J. L. Jackson Harlemworld 221 Ghettos like Harlem are usually viewed as unilaterally poor (class variety being downplayed or ignored outright).

(ii) With reference to conflicts, differences, or antagonisms between classes, esp. between the working class and the ruling classes.

class antagonism n.

ΚΠ

1848 Freeman's Jrnl. (Dublin) 10 July He was not one of those who wished to inflame class prejudices, or maintain class antagonism.

1850 tr. K. Marx & F. Engels Manifesto Communists 23 Nov. 183/2 The old Bourgeois Society, with its classes, and class antagonisms.

a1950 ‘G. Orwell’ England your England (1953) 21 Class antagonisms are not all-important.

2004 Social Scientist 32 66 Fascism transforms class antagonism into racial, ethnic, cultural, religious and geo-political antagonisms.

class bar n.

ΚΠ

1921 W. L. George Hail Columbia! ii. 69 Every boy knows that nothing need stop him, that no class bar will cut him off from any position or any office.

2007 in J. Rodden Cambr. Compan. G. Orwell 46 In The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell denies himself the naïve satisfaction of belief that he could breach the class-bar in England of the Depression years so easily.

class barrier n.

ΚΠ

1844 Bristol Mercury 28 Sept. 6/1 Whatever..tends to impart this most useful knowledge, and, by so imparting, to break down artificial ‘class’ barriers.

1889 G. B. Shaw Fabian Ess. Socialism 21 You set your life apart from theirs by every class barrier you can devise.

1945 A. Koestler Yogi & Commissar iii. iii. 224 A crumbling of class-barriers.

2008 Mirror (Nexis) 18 Feb. 14 The Colleen Bawn has charmed generations of theatre goers with the tale of a peasant girl who breaks down class barriers to wed her wealthy lover.

class bias n.

ΚΠ

1846 Northern Star 26 Sept. 4/5 The great mass of the ‘counsellors’..come with a decided personal and class bias to its discussion.

1931 G. J. Renier English vi. 109 Impartiality..requires absence of class-bias.

2005 T. McCaskell Race to Equity xii. 202 The committee also raised a fuss about the Board's submission to the Royal Commission on Learning,..which omitted any mention of issues such as class bias, homophobia, and sexism from its discussion of equity.

class boundary n.

ΚΠ

1859 A. Fonblanque Man of Fortune x. 119 They [sc. the young men of the present day]..overstep all proper class boundaries.

1959 V. Packard Status Seekers (1960) i. 5 Class boundaries are contrary to the American dream.

2000 M. O'Donnell & S. Sharpe Uncertain Masculinities ii. 50 Educationalists themselves may well have contributed to the extent to which young people seem to be able to think and act outside of class boundaries.

class conflict n.

ΚΠ

1843 Liverpool Mercury 22 Dec. 422/1 It is calculated, if sound, to terminate a class conflict, whose every onward step is stamped with increased energy.

1898 G. B. Shaw in Sat. Rev. 29 Jan. 139/1 The alternative of achieving a real superiority or going ignominiously under in the class conflict.

1919 J. L. Garvin Econ. Found. Peace 106 Our whole future depends upon securing..better relations between Capital and Labour instead of Class-conflict.

2004 Times Lit. Suppl. 6 Aug. 29/1 The term ‘East End’ dates from the 1880s when, even more than the poorer districts south of the Thames, East London became a focus for anxieties about urban poverty and class conflict.

class dictatorship n.

ΚΠ

1900 Times 28 Sept. 3/3 Even if all the Ministers were Socialists it might be necessary to have a class dictatorship such as the bourgeois revolutionists established in 1793.

1941 ‘G. Orwell’ Lion & Unicorn iii. 112 An English Socialist government..will not set up any explicit class dictatorship.

2007 W. Price Abolition of State i. iv.44 The so-called dictatorship of the proletariat—in Marx's classical conception—was to be different from all previous class dictatorships in certain ways.

class difference n.

ΚΠ

1823 Times 27 June 1/4 Surely, any mixture in party dissensions, any partisanship in religious, in political disputes, anything like entering into the detail of class differences..would be that sort of stain from which, above all others, the ermine ought most immediately to be cleared.

1879 S. A. Barnett Let. 21 Dec. in H. Barnett Canon Barnett (1918) I. xix. 233 Our serving-man..has no sense of class difference.

1960 20th Cent. Apr. 373 People do not necessarily weaken class differences..because they can climb from one social class to another.

2006 J. E. McMains Glamour Addiction 12 Glamour is principally generated via class difference.

class divide n.

ΚΠ

1959 A. Briggs Age of Improvem. 301 The economic, educational and temperamental gulf between skilled and unskilled workers was wide enough for John Stuart Mill to consider it the equivalent of a class divide.

2003 Guardian 16 Aug. 52 Two talent shows separated by a gigantic class divide: Fame Academy is stiflingly middle-class, while Pop Idol is sheer Asda-economy-range plebbish.

class division n.

ΚΠ

1841 Northern Star 16 Oct. 7/6 Our evils are more of a social than political character; they arise from our class divisions.

1857 Punch 23 10 Christianity repudiates anything like class divisions among its own followers.

1961 New Left Rev. Jan. 36/1 Traditional class divisions are gradually breaking down.

2000 K. Leech in A. Hastings et al. Oxf. Compan. Christian Thought 676/2 Socialism is the advocacy of, and the struggle for, a society in which class divisions based on differences of economic and other forms of power are abolished.

class enemy n. [in later use after Russian klassovyj vrag (1906 or earlier) and its possible model, German Klassenfeind (1891 or earlier; 1914 in the passage translated in quot. 1918)]

ΚΠ

1893 Freeman's Jrnl. (Dublin) 9 Sept. 5/6 The first great blow that was struck for popular liberty..against the class enemies of the franchise.

1918 L. Trotzky Bolsheviki & World Peace vi. 161 Why did it [sc. the Social Democracy] take upon itself the responsibility for acts undertaken by its irreconcilable class enemies [Ger. Klassenfeinden]?

1951 F. Beck & W. Godin Russ. Purge vii. 202 The terrible lot of ‘class enemies’.

1957 R. N. C. Hunt Guide to Communist Jargon iv. 8 To assert that democracy—i.e. the ‘rule of the people’—can be achieved under the domination of its ‘class enemy’..would be absurd.

2001 Kenyon Rev. Winter 35 Leonid Dobychin (1854–1936?) fell victim to Stalin's campaign against ‘formalism’ in the arts. After publishing two slim volumes and stories and one small, brilliant novel, The Town of N, Dobychin was somehow elected first whipping boy—‘chief formalist’—among Leningrad artists. At a general meeting of the Writers' Union he was proclaimed a ‘class enemy’ and his writing cruelly censured.

class feeling n.

ΚΠ

1839 J. S. Mill in A. Bain James Mill (1882) ii. 53 The convictions of the mass of mankind run hand in hand with their interests or with their class feelings.

1961 A. O. J. Cockshut Imagination of Charles Dickens viii. 119 The contempt for Uriah is partly a class-feeling.

2007 National Post (Canada) (Nexis) 24 Nov. a24 The most even-handed historians note that it was class feeling and political ideology, above all, which influenced his [sc. Lord Durham's] sentiments.

class hatred n.

ΚΠ

1842 Morning Chron. 31 Aug. Not turning it to purposes unworthy of man by fostering class hatred.

1851 T. G. Massey in Friend of People 26 Apr. 177/3 I shall be accused of sowing class-hatred.

1908 Daily Chron. 29 June 4/4 From top to bottom of the social or economic scale of class-consciousness or class-hatreds.

1937 J. M. Murry Necessity of Pacifism i. 10 Marx is vulgarly but generally reputed to be a propagator of the duty of class-hatred.

2004 G. Simmel & D. Frisby Philos. Money v. ii. 408 Hence passionate and aggressive class hatred does not emerge where the classes are separated by an unbridgeable gulf, but rather at that moment at which..the levelling of both classes can be discussed.

class jealousy n.

ΚΠ

1842 North of Eng. Mag. Aug. 396 Besides class interest, class jealousy opposes us, the ‘landocracy’ are jealous of the trading classes, [etc.].

1920 D. H. Lawrence Lost Girl i. 8 Let class-jealousy be what it may, a woman hates to see another woman left stalely on the shelf.

2004 M. S. Willis Dwight's House & Other Stories i. 38 Beneath bigotry was always economics, class jealousy, injustice.

class line n.

ΚΠ

1839 Atlas (Boston, Mass.) 7 Nov. The late efforts of the leading partisans of the Administration, to establish class-lines among the citizens, to make a political distinction between what they call the ‘rich and the poor’.

1902 Atlantic Monthly Sept. 351/1 The public applauds a President of the United States who in his hospitality ignores the color line; to ignore the class line were a different matter.

1998 P. Gourevitch We wish to inform You xxi. 330 He had come to favor the formation of political groupings along class lines, in order to produce ‘horizontal polarization’, as opposed to the ‘vertical polarization’ of tribalism or regionalism.

class loyalty n.

ΚΠ

1875 Pall Mall Gaz. 8 May 10/1 It is admittedly legitimate for a workman to appeal the esprit de corps—the class loyalty of another whom he is attempting to win.

1899 W. James Talks to Teachers 289 Class-loyalty was undoubtedly an ideal with many.

1938 ‘G. Orwell’ Homage to Catalonia iii. 34 In a workers' army discipline..is based on class-loyalty.

2003 J. A. Ferreyra in A. Elena & M. D. López Cinema of Lat. Amer. iii. 35 In a desperate attempt to appeal to class loyalty, she reproaches him, asking ‘What would your father say about this!’

class morality n.

ΚΠ

1833 J. S. Mill in Monthly Repository 7 577 That blighting curse of our country,—the selfishness of class morality.

1951 R. Firth Elements Social Organization vi. 211 Class morality is apt not to be a direct reflection of current structural alignments.

2002 J. Bowden tr. H. Küng Tracing Way vi. 205 Its [sc. Christianity's] action was not simply in good Roman style, in accordance with law, custom or class morality.

class prejudice n.

ΚΠ

1839 Odd Fellow 22 June It describing the lazy operative,..it should not be considered we have any class prejudices about us.

1850 C. Kingsley Alton Locke I. xi. 172 All my class prejudices against ‘game-preserving aristocrats’.

1925 O. Jespersen Mankind, Nation & Individual iv. 81 The difference in language begets a mutual disdain and class-prejudice.

2004 Independent 14 July i. 6/2 The honours system was condemned by the MPs as anachronistic, dominated by secrecy, riddled with class prejudice and biased against ethnic minorities and women.

class relations n.

ΚΠ

1872 Galaxy June 764 Had our ancestors, Puritan or Cavalier, in settling the land, found their work of colonization done to their bands, and entered on a ready-made country,so to speak, their personal and class relations would naturally have been apt to shape themselves after the traditions they brought with them.

1989 P. Cloke Rural Land-use Planning in Developed Nations i. 8 Such a view ignores other more powerful and realistic concepts of decision-making power: elitism/instrumentalism..managerialism..and structuralism which promotes the viewpoint that class relations represent the only real disaggregation of society which can inform the analysis of power and policy-making.

class rule n.

ΚΠ

1841 Northern Star 26 June 3/5 Shall we ever have enough of class-rule under Whig management.

1864 tr. K. Marx in Founding of First Internat. (1935) 39 The struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule.

1959 Universities & Left Rev. Spring 1/1 A socialist commitment, a conscious rejection of all that springs from class rule.

2001 E. Bolsinger Autonomy of Polit. ii. iv. 69 It has been said that Lenin determines the function of the state as being an instrument of class conflict and class rule.

class solidarity n.

ΚΠ

1898 G. Wallas Life Francis Place 879 The conception which fired the northern factory hands and pitmen, or the Welsh iron- miners in 1838 and 1839, and again m 1848, was that of a class solidarity depending primarily upon an identity of material interest.

1907 Q. Jrnl. Econ. 21 307 Class solidarity will arise on the basis of this class interest.

2000 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 10 Aug. 48/4 Sombart knew that..the United States was an immigrant society; that it was criss-crossed by religious and linguistic particularisms; that racial antagonisms cut across class solidarity.

class spirit n.

ΚΠ

1837 Brighton Patriot 24 Jan. The principles of these Halls of Science are national, not of the individual or ‘class’ spirit.

1840 J. S. Mill in Edinb. Rev. Oct. 39 That absence of classes and class-spirit.

1886 B. Webb Let. in My Apprenticeship (1926) iii. 166 Class spirit hardly exists because there is no capitalist class.

1911 Times 24 Jan. 5/7 From end to end of Australia, in almost every form of social relationship, class spirit constantly overpowers public spirit.

2000 H. R. Winton & D. R. Mets Challenge of Change 121 The new Captain Tushins..received political indoctrination in keeping with Marxist ideology and the class spirit of the Red Army.

class superiority n.

ΚΠ

1841 Northern Star 10 Apr. 7/3 The keeping up of class superiority, no matter what.

1859 J. S. Mill On Liberty i. 16 Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority.

1948 F. R. Leavis Great Trad. v. 246 His languid assurance of class-superiority.

2006 T. F. Jackson From Civil Rights to Human Rights i. 28 Auburn Avenue gave King, Jr. a ‘deeply religious’ identity, and both parents actively discouraged feelings of class superiority in their children.

class sympathy n.

ΚΠ

1832 Examiner 1 July 424/1 We fear, that the sympathy expressed for the cause of the Poles by the members of our Government is a class sympathy.

1875 W. Stubbs Constit. Hist. III. xix. 326 If their class-sympathies were with the clergy.

1938 Times 5 Aug. 13/7 Relief work falls into two categories, according to whether it is prompted by class sympathy, or undertaken on purely humanitarian grounds untinged by politics.

2002 M. Saeed-Vafa in R. Tapper New Iranian Cinema x. 213 By excluding the affluent parts of Tehran and the city's modern architecture, many films make a social or political comment about the filmmaker's class or class sympathies.

class traitor n.

ΚΠ

1929 Scribner's Mag. Apr. 463/2 A certain woman organizer regularly hurled the name of ‘class traitors!’ at the young women who were responsible for unionizing their fellow workers.

1966 Maclean's 20 Aug. 43 Morgan has no cures for society so he opts out, even if his Mum does call him a class traitor.

1997 I. Sinclair Lights out for Territory (1998) 91 They're class traitors, flaunting behaviour you'd expect from a lowlifer, a boho, an unreconstructed writer.

(b) In sense A. 12b. See also class leader n. at Compounds 1c, class book n. 1b.

class meeting n.

ΚΠ

1786 A. Orchard (title) Hymns peculiarly adapted for the prayer and class meetings, among the people called Methodists.

1815 V. Ward Statement of Facts (ed. 2) 49 In Class Meetings, the time is employed in conversation on the subject of experimental and practical Religion.

1884 American 8 71 Chapel and class-meeting pulled one way, and church the other.

1938 H. Spring My Son, my Son ii. xi.136 Dinner was a silent meal, and when it was done she set off for her weekly class meeting at the Wesleyan chapel along the road.

2005 M. F. Whiteley Canad. Methodist Women 1766–1925 v. xi. 220 Although the class meeting had as its chief purpose the spiritual oversight of its members, it also had practical functions.

(c) In sense A. 6, as class examination, class paper, etc. Now rare.

ΚΠ

1860 M. Burrows Pass & Class 15 The Pass papers occupy one day, the Class papers from four to five.

1868 M. Pattison Suggestions Acad. Organisation 298 Dr. Pusey, living on the spot, can discriminate between the ‘Pass’ and the ‘Class’ curriculum.

1931 R. Campbell Georgiad i. 18 All who have learned this grim felicity And swotted bliss up, like the Rule of Three, As if life were a class-examination And there were penance in cohabitation.

1978 Panjab Past & Present 12 290 His successor might have still been thinking of the litteræ humaniores and the class papers of Oxford.

(a) Adverbial (in sense A. 4a(b)).

class-based adj.

ΚΠ

1939 W. S. Churchill Step by Step 1936–9 149 The building up of a class-based Socialist–Labour party in Great Britain involved a great setback for Left-wing politics.

2001 S. Walton Out of It (2002) iv. 109 Cocaine's comeback in the 1970s..was very much a class-based affair. Its aura of elite unaffordability made it the drug of choice among semi-retired West Coast rock musicians and their associates.

class-biased adj.

ΚΠ

1909 Westm. Gaz. 9 Sept. 2/3 A citizen Army, free from military law in times of peace, is the best alternative to the class-biased policy of the present Government.

1950 D. Riesman in Psychiatry 13 302/2 Certain elements in Freud's view of life were narrow, class-biased, and reactionary.

2004 ‘B. Hooks’ We Real Cool iii. 34 Most boys from poor and underprivileged classes are socialized via mass media and class-biased education to believe that all is required for their survival is the ability to do physical labor.

class-bound adj.

ΚΠ

1898 Atlantic Monthly Mar. 303/1 Except in one direction it [sc. the English political system] was not class-bound in its views, but was moved, for the most part, by a spirit really national and broad.

1960 New Left Rev. Nov. 28/1 The new ‘working-class consciousness’..is likely to be..less class-bound.

2005 Times Lit. Suppl. 29 Apr. 20/2 People in Scott's ambitious book are types familiar from works by other writers who dealt with the British colonial past—..they speak in the class-bound clichés of the time and drink gin on the verandah at sundown.

class-ridden adj.

ΚΠ

1842 Northern Star 17 Sept. 1/5 We conceive it to be our duty to address you at this critical juncture in the affairs of this class-ridden country.

1934 D. Thomas Let. 20 July in Sel. Lett. (1966) 138 All society ceases to be class-ridden when treated purely as a primary body of consumers.

1941 ‘G. Orwell’ Lion & Unicorn i. i. 33 England is the most class-ridden country under the sun.

2005 Writer's Mag. Sept. 24/3 Once again, he may have been looking for a proletarian antidote to his class-ridden origins.

class-structured adj.

ΚΠ

1935 Ann. Amer. Acad. Polit. & Social Sci. 182 8/1 The question or whether or no American society is a class-structured society is a social problem worthy of investigation.

2001 D. Howard Coloring the Nation iii. 72 The Dominican Republic isa class-structured society, where race often subverts class interests.

(b) Objective (in sense A. 9).

class attender n.

ΚΠ

1888 Aberdeen Weekly Jrnl. 17 Sept. 4/3 Sunday scholars and Bible class attenders of any age will be eligible for admission to the Church Brigades.]

1897 B'ham Inst. Mag. Nov. 214 Pity her sadness, ye happy lecture-goers and class-attenders.

2003 S. Wickham Midwifery 58/2 Another author noted that her subjects considered classes least useful as a source of parentcraft instruction, a conclusion with which another researcher concurred when reporting that class attenders felt that they had been inadequately prepared for ‘coping with the new baby’.

class-holder n.

ΚΠ

1889 B. Bosanquet Ess. & Addr. 81 All the appliances for work being there, and competent teachers on the spot, class-holders who come up to town for a day or two can go there and get special difficulties solved.

1892 E. Rowe Hints on Chip-carving 54 My experiences as a class-holder in one of the evening classes of a London Board School.

1910 Times 26 May 6/4 In addition 88 class-holders are exhibiting at the Albert Hall.

class teacher n.

ΚΠ

1818 Academician 18 June 100/2 Each class teacher as well as those in his class are constantly kept at their lessons.

1905 Daily Chron. 11 July 3/2 The unfairness to the rate-payer,..to the class-teacher, to the non-collegiate.

1999 Times Educ. Suppl. 7 May 79/3 We are looking for an experienced full-time class teacher with creativity and enthusiasm to work in our recently established Primary Language Unit.

class teaching n.

ΚΠ

1837 Analyst 7 96 The instruction of adults may be forwarded by cheap works, class teaching, and public lectures.

1959 Chambers's Encycl. IV. 353/2 In a number of English schools, where a modified Dalton plan is still used, one finds a mixture of class-teaching and of individual assignments.

1997 Educ. Rev. Winter 54/2 We need liberating from the straightjacket of the notion of class teaching, to enable us to teach in larger or smaller groups as the nature of the subject.

class action n. Law (originally and chiefly North American) a single legal action brought on behalf of all the members of a group with a common interest or grievance; frequently attributive.

ΘΚΠ

society > law > administration of justice > court proceedings or procedure > action of courts in claims or grievances > [noun] > a lawsuit > other types of action

mort d'ancestora1325

trespass on the case1429

action of detinue1467

mortancestry1471

replevin1515

non-finding1525

nisi prius1533

faint action1542

interpleadera1558

improbationc1575

assize1577

assumpsit1586

transitory action1594

trover1594

suit of the King's peace1607

detinuea1626

quia timet1628

choke-baila1637

reprobator1672

spulyie1678

petitory action1681

proprium1695

restitution of conjugal rights1720

amicable suit1768

noxal action1774

real action1818

witness action1892

class suit1894

non-jury1897

foreclosure action1905

class action1910

derivative action1934

paternity suit1945

1910 Northeastern Reporter 90 175 The plaintiff cannot maintain this action as a class action on behalf of himself and all other similarly situated creditors of the defendant.

1973 Black Panther 3 Mar. 6/1 The class-action law-suit filed in U.S. District Court asks that the Department of Health..be required to issue regulations forbidding States from defining eligibility rules more narrowly than federal law permits.

2001 D. Kessler Question of Intent xxx. 228 Countless liability suits continued to be filed, including..a class-action lawsuit on behalf of..ailing smokers in Florida. No class-action case had ever come to trial before.

class analysis n. analysis of politics, society, etc., using social class as the central means of understanding and explanation, esp. with reference to Marxist or Weberian theory; an instance of this.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > study of society > [noun] > theories or methods of analysis

reflexivity1662

social statics1843

social causation1848

sociography1881

functionalism1904

class analysis1919

culturalism1919

mass observation1920

survey1927

participant observation1933

participant observing1933

Verstehen1934

panel technique1938

MO1939

ahistoricism1940

historicism1940

technologism1940

action research1945

metasociology1950

pattern variable1951

structural functionalism1951

structuralism1951

panel analysis1955

cliometrics1960

unilinearism1964

technology assessment1966

symbolic interactionism1969

modernization theory1972

processualism1972

postcolonialism1974

decontextualization1976

decontextualizing1980

structurism1989

1919 M. I. Rostovtsev tr. A. Lunacharsky in Proletarian Culture 8 The only correct analysis of art is a ‘class analysis’.

1962 China Q. 10 43 This stress on the identity between the industrial and the rural proletariat..is to be found in the class analysis of both Mao and Aidit.

2005 Independent 1 Oct. 36 Baathism in all its forms was avowedly anti-Marxist and eschewed all class analysis and politics.

class cleavage n. (a) political division between different social classes; an instance of this; (b) Linguistics the occurrence of a word in more than one grammatical class; the use of a word to fulfil a new or different grammatical function (rare).

ΘΚΠ

the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > a part of speech > [noun] > occurrence in more than one part of speech

class cleavage1933

1893 Times 16 Jan. 7/3 You would have a central council composed one-third of owners, one-third of occupiers, one-third of labourers, and yet you would not have any class cleavage between them.

1933 L. Bloomfield Lang. xii. 204 The word one occurs not only as an indefinite determiner (one man), but also in some entirely different functions (as in a big one, if one only knew); this phenomenon may be designated as class-cleavage.

1937 J. M. Murry Necessity of Pacifism vi. 98 Advanced Capitalism operates far more strongly towards national cohesion than towards class-cleavage.

1954 D. M. Potter People of Plenty i. 44 The answer to this question..might depend upon the depth of class cleavages within the society.

1986 W. Safire in N.Y. Times 1 June 12/2 Modern advertising is entranced with two techniques: attributive nominating and class cleavage.

2005 M. Smith Civil Society? 22 Society is not divided by class cleavages alone, but is also characterized by cleavages based on other definitions of the interests of the individual.

class clown n. a student who is prone to making jokes, playing pranks, etc., rather than concentrating on schoolwork; also in extended use.

ΚΠ

1914 La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune 7 Sept. 2 He did not see a certain movement on the part of Jery O'Neil, class clown.

1994 Amer. Spectator Oct. 64/2 [He] is less the bad boy of Russian politics than its class clown: an embarrassment, a durak, a fool.

2002 N.Y. Mag. 9 Dec. 46/2 I ended up being voted class clown in every class—and class clowns, I've determined over time, are just kids who need a lot of attention.

class concept n. Logic = class notion n.

ΚΠ

1866 T. C. Simon Hamilton versus Mill I. iii. 92 We have, therefore, image-concepts as well as genus-concepts or class-concepts, the former being of individuals only, the latter of classes or genera.

1903 B. Russell Princ. Math. ii. 19 The class must be distinguished from the class-concept or predicate by which it is to be defined: thus men are a class, while man is a class-concept.

2004 Philos. East & West 54 533 Cross-cultural comparison calls for the formulation of class concepts or categories.

class-conscious adj. [probably after German klassenbewußt (1888; now klassenbewusst ); compare slightly earlier class-consciousness n.] aware of belonging to a particular social class or of the differences between social classes.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > social mobility > class-conscious

class-conscious1899

1899 W. M. Burke Hist. & Functions Central Labor Unions 111 The following letter..sets forth clearly the real difference between a ‘pure and simple’ trade unionist and a ‘class-conscious’ socialist.

1903 J. London People of Abyss viii. 84 I was a superior, and they were superbly class-conscious.

1907 Fabian News 19 94/1 The middle classes are more class-conscious than the workers.

2005 T. Hall Salaam Brick Lane x. 217 ‘It's not dangerous,’ I continued. ‘It's just that the British are class conscious, and sometimes people from different classes can be stand-offish with one another.’

class-consciousness n. [after German Klassenbewußtsein (1865 in F. Engels; now Klassenbewusstsein)] awareness of one's place in a system of social class, esp. (in Marxist terms) as it relates to the class struggle.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > social mobility > class-conscious > state of being

class-consciousness1887

1887 S. Moore & E. Aveling tr. K. Marx Capital I. p. xxiv The German proletariat had attained a much more clear class-consciousness [Ger. Klassenbewußtsein] than the German bourgeoisie.

1922 Westm. Gaz. 18 Dec. The belief that what was called class consciousness was necessary to social progress.

1978 P. Thompson Voice of Past iii. 70 This study of a Durham mining valley shows the role which Primitive Methodism..played in inhibiting the growth of militant class-consciousness among the miners.

2002 S. Brett Torso in Town (2003) i. 1 She could still recognize that Fedborough was riddled with class-consciousness.

class cup n. U.S. (now rare) (a) (esp. at Yale College) a silver cup presented by each class (sense A. 10) to the first child born to one of its members after graduation (said to have been first awarded at Yale by the Class of 1844); (b) a cup awarded for winning a sporting competition, esp. among members of a class (sense A. 10).

ΚΠ

1854 in Dict. Amer. Eng. (1960) I. (at cited word) Each man's mind was made up To obtain the ‘Class Cup’.

1871 L. H. Bagg Four Years at Yale ii. v. 540 It may be remarked that none of the ‘Class Cup Boys’ have as yet graduated from the college.

1881 Columbia Spectator (Columbia Univ, N.Y.) 11 May 18/1 The spring regatta will probably take place on May 14th, when the oarsmen will have a chance to leave their names on the class cup.

1899 Rec. Class 1878 College Univ. Penn. 122 William Henry, born February, 1883, possessor of the class cup.

1913 Biogr. Sketches Class 1868 Dartmouth Coll. 115 A son, Arthur Richardson, was born May 12, 1870, for whom he claimed the Class Cup; this cup was intended for the first baby born to the class.

1931 Penn. Gaz. (Univ. Penn.) 1 June 451/2 Preceding the dinner there will be the annual golf match for the class cup, a hotly contested feature.

class day n. U.S. a day on which the senior class in a college celebrates the completion of their course, typically with formal festivities, prize-giving, etc.

ΘΚΠ

society > education > educational administration > university administration > [noun] > special day or week

Le day1574

commencement day1606

Show Sunday1825

class day1833

presentation day1843

June Week1889

spirit week1923

1833 F. A. Whitney Diary 16 July in Harvard Bk. (1875) II. 165 Our Class Day, glorious summer weather.

1843 in 17th Ann. Rep. President Harvard Univ. to Overseers 10 Music on Seniors' ‘Class Day’.

1886 J. Quincy in Holmes Life Emerson 45 Emerson accepted the duty of delivering the Poem on Class Day.

1910 C. C. Eliot Let. 3 Apr. in T. S. Eliot Lett. (1988) I. 13 You must be sure and secure tickets when the time comes for Father and me to hear your Ode. Is it on Class Day, at Sanders?

2006 University Wire (Nexis) 18 Apr. The Class Day ceremony includes the presentation of the class gift, the class history and several academic, athletic and service prizes.

class fee n. the fee charged by a teacher for a class; (chiefly Scottish) one payable to a professor by all those attending a university class (now historical).

ΚΠ

1808 New Ann. Reg. 1807 Lit. Select. & Retrospect 265/2 The barons of the exchequer..should generously interfere, and request the professors..to have some mercy on themselves, and appropriate out of this [fund], one hundred and fifty pounds annually each to their own use, which, with the class fees,..would form a very comfortable and genteel livelihood.

1873 Edinb. Univ. Cal. 1873–4 336 Annual Salaries (exclusive of Class Fees) attached to the Office of Principal [etc.].

1950 L. J. Saunders Sc. Democracy 1815–40 v. iii. 336 If necessary, the extra-mural student could always attend a university class on payment of the class fee.

2005 K. Z. Jones 200 Best Home Businesses (ed. 2) 73 The costs of your raw materials will need to be factored into your class fees.

class-fellow n. a student in the same class as another at school, college, or university.

ΘΚΠ

society > education > learning > learner > [noun] > those taught by same master > fellow pupil or disciple

condisciple1554

book mate1598

class-fellow1712

classmate1713

deskmate1850

society > education > learning > learner > college or university student > [noun] > fellow-student

fellow collegiate1616

fellow collegian1630

class-fellow1712

classmate1713

1712 J. Swift Jrnl. to Stella 1 Mar. (2013) 399 Y have heard me often talk of Stratford; we were Classfellows at School & University.

1830 A. Heber Life R. Heber I. i. 8 In this respect his class-fellows had sometimes the credit of surpassing him.

1964 B. Friel Philadelphia, Here I Come! 43 His father and I were classfellows at school.

2005 S. Chandan Volcano 28 In our school days, we'd shared the same bench and talked about all sorts of things, from teachers, class-fellows and girls, and exchanged lewd jokes too.

class firing n. originally Military trial shooting used to assign rifle shooters (originally military riflemen) to a class according to level of skill.

ΚΠ

1861 Bristol Mercury 16 Mar. 2/6 The class firing..would soon commence, and he hoped the gentlemen of the corps would take every possible mean..of availing themselves of private practice at the butts.

1888 Vct. Melgund in 19th Cent. Apr. 563 With Mounted Riflemen, class-firing alone gives a good deal of work.

1996 Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) (Nexis) 21 Apr. c12 The DEC has around 5,000 volunteer instructors who certify an average of 50,000 new hunters per year. Each student gets workbooks and a supply ammunition for class firing as well as small-calibre firearms.

class inclusion n. Logic the relation that holds between two classes when every member of the first is a member of the second; (also more generally) inclusion in a class.

ΚΠ

1878 C. Read On Theory of Logic 53 The inclusion of one Class by another is represented by A, and Class-inclusion depends on Likeness.

1920 Mind 29 337 The relations which occur in the premises and conclusion of a syllogism are logical relations, e.g. that of class-inclusion.

1978 Child Devel. 49 688 A typical class inclusion task involves the presentation of two numerically unequal subclasses (e.g., five dogs and two cats) which both belong to one superordinate class (animals).

2004 G. Moffatt Parenting Journey vii. 159 It is an understanding of class inclusion that helps a child understand seeming contradictions.

class interval n. Statistics each of the intervals into which the frequency distribution of a set of results is divided, often represented by a division of a histogram or bar chart; a range of values that falls into a single such division.

ΚΠ

1906 Jrnl. Royal Statist. Soc. 69 578 There are many more districts near the upper limit of the class interval than the lower.

1980 C. S. French Computer Sci. xliii. 335 The class interval shown as 25–29 will include values between 24.5 and 29.5 because measurement is to the nearest second.

1996 New Scientist 23 Mar. 46/2 What..the former Soviet republics use as class intervals for sand, silt and clay differ from the western Wentworth scale—some Russian clay is British silt.

class leader n. a member of a Methodist society who takes charge of a class (sense A. 12b).

ΚΠ

1770 J. Wesley Let. 27 Jan. (1931) V. 179 Give Mr. Shirley a hint not to contradict me when he preaches in my house... Who are your new class-leaders?

1857 C. Kingsley Two Years Ago I. iv. 128 A tidy, God-fearing person..One of these Methodist class-leaders.

1930 W. J. Warner Wesleyan Movement in Industr. Revol. viii. viii. 262 In the biographies of successful Methodists their service as class leader is a usual item.

2000 K. B. Westerfield Amer. Methodist Worship ix. 227 Family prayer was serious business: one class leader in Ohio ‘allowed no family to live without prayer’.

class-leading adj. that is the best in a given class.

ΚΠ

1954 Florence (S. Carolina) Morning News 17 Dec. 6 a/3 (caption) The class-leading Hartsville S.C. girls.

1984 Washington Post 16 Feb. (Maryland Weekly section) 11/4 Richardson won the 50-yard dash (5.3) and 300-yard run (33.5) in class-leading times.

2003 What Home Cinema Jan. 123/1 Already employed by Pioneer in its class-leading car audio products, the OEL display affords the use of distinctive type fonts and motion graphics.

class list n. (a) a list of the members of a class in a school, college, or university; (b) a list of the candidates who have passed an examination, showing the class (sense A. 6) in which each is placed.

ΘΚΠ

society > education > educational administration > examination > [noun] > honours list

class list1807

honours list1849

honour board1879

1807 J. Lancaster Improvem. in Educ. (new ed.) 94 He then makes a list of absentees, by referring to names in the class-list.

1834 W. Sewell Attack upon Univ. of Oxf. (ed. 2) 42 Our ambition in Oxford is to be mentioned in the Class List.

1877 R. H. Roberts Harry Holbrooke of Holbrooke Hall i. 18 It was seen at the head of the class-list in the school quadrangle when the class-lists were posted.

1925 Times 15 July 19/3 The examiners in the Final Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics..issued the following class list.

1991 M. Dorris & L. Erdrich Crown of Columbus iv. 59 When my preliminary class lists arrive in intercampus mail, I match the students' names with their faces in each freshman book, curious as a blind date.

2006 C. Chartres Why I am Still Anglican 70 There was a horrible moment at the end of my course when the class list was pinned up and I discovered to my deepest horror that I'd got a Third.

† class-man n. Obsolete a university student, esp. at Oxford or Cambridge, who has obtained an honours degree after examination; see sense A. 6.

ΚΠ

1822 Etonian No. 10. 380 Breakfast at Sterling's room; rather frightened at first, for I found three or four B.A.'s; among whom I recognized two class-men.

1823 T. De Quincey Lett. Young Man in London Mag. Mar. 333 A man was rated as to his income..he who was in the highest was said emphatically to be of the class, ‘classicus’—a class-man, without adding the number.

1860 M. Burrows Pass & Class (1866) 263 (note) Xenophon's..works are not those usually taken up by the Class-man.

classmanship n. †(a) the condition of having passed the examination for an honours degree at Oxford or Cambridge (obsolete rare); (b) the position of belonging to a school or college class; the conduct or behaviour considered appropriate to this.

ΚΠ

1885 L. Stephen Life H. Fawcett iii. 76 A youth just fresh from his classmanship often impresses his seniors as a little too condescending.

1921 Woodland (Calif.) Daily Democrat 17 June 1/3 These five have their names on the honor roll because of excellence in classmanship during the term just about to close.

2004 Times Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) (Nexis) 19 Aug. d2 Good classmanship: Remind your child the importance of being considerate of classmates, listening and co-operating with teachers, following school rules, approaching learning with best efforts and open mind.

class mark n. a reference mark or number indicating the class or subject of a book in a library and often its position on the library shelves; cf. shelf-mark n. at shelf n.¹ Compounds 2.

ΘΚΠ

society > communication > book > library or collection of books > library, place, or institution > [noun] > press- or shelf-mark > indicating class or subject of book

class mark1824

class number1873

1824 S. Lee in tr. H. Martyn Controv. Tracts Pref. p. xlii It bears the class mark of the Public Library Ll. 6. 28–9.

1855 Ann. Rep. Cambr. Univ. Libr. 1 These Pamphlets..have no Class-marks attached to their Titles in the Catalogue.

1910 Times 2 Dec. 13/2 His scheme for substituting for the various series of class marks in the library one series of Arabic numbers was carried out as far as the alteration of all the marks in the books and in the catalogue.

1995 G. S. Koh in A. R. Thomas Classification 197 Catalogs should use terms in the classification schedules and indexes as well as the class mark notations.

class marriage n. Cultural Anthropology the strict system of exogamy practised by Australian Aboriginal people, in which a member of one class may only marry into certain other classes.

ΚΠ

1880 E. B. Tylor in Jrnl. Anthropol. Inst. 9 354 The class marriage system of Australia, under which a man of a particular class may only take a wife of a particular class, has long been well known.

1883 Science 2 807/2 Mr. Bonney describes their [sc. aborigines of the River Darling's] parturition customs, systematic infanticide, child-rearing, initiation of youth, class-marriage, courtesy, charms, sucking-cure, diseases, blood-cure, burials and mourning.

2004 D. McKnight Going Whiteman's Way vi. 97 There are many reports of people being severely punished and even killed because they infringed the class marriage Laws.

class meaning n. Linguistics the aspect of the meaning of a word or linguistic form shared by all words or forms belonging to the same syntactic category.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > language > linguistics > semantics > meaning or signification > [noun] > of forms belonging to same form class

class meaning1858

1858 J. T. White Lat. Suffixes Pref. p. ix The Suffix supplies the class-meaning.

1926 L. Bloomfield in Language 2 159 The functional meanings in which the forms of a form-class appear constitute the class-meaning.

1958 C. F. Hockett Course in Mod. Linguistics xxx. 256 This class-meaning, ‘single female human or animal’, is not an invariable part of the meaning of she.

2007 P. H. Matthews Syntactic Relations iv. 62 These, then, were all determiners; the class-meaning assigned to them was, ‘roughly, “identificational character of specimens”’.

class movement n. a political or cultural movement consisting solely or chiefly of members of a particular social class.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social relations > association for a common purpose > [noun] > group associated for common purpose

covinc1330

lyancec1380

university?1473

army1540

band1557

union1603

coalescence1609

confederation1621

associationa1658

confederacy1681

federation1791

brigade1806

united front1807

class movement1839

company1839

paction1877

combine1889

protest movement1898

protest group1920

minority movement1923

we1926

power1966

1839 Morning Chron. 8 Nov. 2/5 What shame and guilt must ever follow the faction that..left the masses in such a state of deplorable ignorance as not to perceive the difference between a class movement and a national movement?

1918 Econ. Jrnl. 28 427 The question whether the co-operative movement is a class movement..is not only of theoretical importance, but has also a practical value.

2007 J. Gerteis Class & Color Line 5 Their broad range of members—from farm hands and day laborers to planters and proprietors—has led some later observers to wonder whether these were really class movements at all.

class name n. the name of a logical class, a general name; (Grammar) = class noun n.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > language > naming > name or appellation > [noun] > other specific names or types of name

the Holy Namec1440

Singh1623

specification1633

indigitamenta1657

explicative1669

ethnic1791

household name1804

class term1811

book name1815

biverb1831

class word1837

family name1840

class name1843

ananym1867

papponymic1875

autonym1879

throne name1880

demonymic1893

ethnonym1894

a name to conjure with1901

praise name1904

self-reference1948

exonym1957

specific1962

endonym1970

demonym1990

the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > a part of speech > noun > [noun] > other specific types of noun

increaser1612

regulara1637

energizer1751

agent noun1782

nomen actionis1820

segolate1831

class noun1849

patrial1854

nomen agentis1859

metaplast1864

agent word1879

post-genitive1922

conversion-noun1928

noun adjective1930

head noun1933

relatum1933

actant1967

class name1994

1843 J. S. Mill Syst. Logic I. i. v. 138 When the class-name is predicated of any object of this description.

1870 F. C. Bowen Logic xi. 353 The..essential qualities of the objects denoted by the class-name.

1994 T. C. Potts Structures & Categories for Representation Meaning iii. 108 This works providing that every class name (count noun) is qualified by a restrictive relative clause.

2004 M. Potter Set Theory & its Philos. 302 If we do this, we can no longer treat {} as contextually defined, since we shall want to use it alongside class names, where its meaning cannot be unpacked contextually.

class notion n. Logic a concept, regarded as defining a class of individuals.

ΚΠ

1851 N. Brit. Rev. 15 117 In this passage we do not think sufficient distinction is made..between attributes which are employed in the definition of a class notion and attributes which may be used in a description of the individuals which the class contains.

1864 F. C. Bowen Logic iii. 51 I can think any object only by placing it under a Concept, or Class-notion expressed by a General Term.

1946 M. H. Carré Realists & Nominalists iv. 123 The universal in thought was perceived to include not only class notions, but to embrace other forms of essential connexions.

2005 N. Ronkin Early Buddhist Metaphysics iv. iii. 158 The two terms,..do not yet denote a universal in the sense of an abstract entity or a class-notion that makes up various particulars members of a single class, but rather the visible form by which the members of a class are recognized.

class noun n. Grammar a noun that denotes a class of objects; esp. one denoting any individual member of a class; a count noun (frequently opposed to material noun).

ΘΚΠ

the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > a part of speech > noun > [noun] > other specific types of noun

increaser1612

regulara1637

energizer1751

agent noun1782

nomen actionis1820

segolate1831

class noun1849

patrial1854

nomen agentis1859

metaplast1864

agent word1879

post-genitive1922

conversion-noun1928

noun adjective1930

head noun1933

relatum1933

actant1967

class name1994

1849 J. Brown Eng. Gram. II. 136 Girard was the Cræsus of Philadelphia. Cræsus here is made to constitute a class. Hence his name is a class noun.

1892 H. Sweet New Eng. Gram. I. 54 Common nouns..are subdivided into class-nouns, such as man, and material-nouns, such as iron.

1939 H. E. Palmer Gram. Spoken Eng. (ed. 2) i. 30 Every word in the dictionary is potentially a class-noun, for we can speak of ifs and buts.

1985 R. Hickey in J. Fisiak Hist. Semantics & Hist. Word-formation 217 The input for agency derivation may come from the lexical class noun or verb.

1995 J. W. M. Verhaar Toward Ref. Gram. Tok Pisin xx. 340 Such plurals take on class noun characteristics: waters is then, rather like ‘waves’, or ‘stretches of water’.

class number n. = class mark n.

ΘΚΠ

society > communication > book > library or collection of books > library, place, or institution > [noun] > press- or shelf-mark > indicating class or subject of book

class mark1824

class number1873

1873 M. Dewey in G. Dawe Melvil Dewey (1932) 320 Sub-classify each, or any, of these eighty-one (hundred) classes... A Dictionary of Science would receive no sub-classification but remain simply with main class number.

1996 M. Cornog & T. Perper For Sex Educ., see Librarian vii. 119 Each class number should be compared with those of similar books.

† class-office n. Obsolete the office responsible for the administration of a classis lottery.

ΚΠ

1714 London Gaz. No. 5228/4 Whoever brings them to Mr. Ravand at the Class-Office Anno 1712, at the Exchequer, shall have 40s. reward.

class pride n. (a) pride in one's social class; (b) (chiefly U.S.) pride in or support for one's school, college, or university class.

ΚΠ

1838 Northern Liberator 17 Nov. 2/1 Examine your own hearts, divest yourselves of prejudice and class pride.

1839 Yale Lit. Mag. Apr. 320 The experience of another year has..established the Magazine upon the same basis upon which rest the transmitted usages and institutions of college—upon a class pride, emulous of former attainments.

1999 Chicago Daily Herald (Nexis) 16 Sept. 3 Each class was given an opportunity to show its class pride by dressing in a given colour.

2004 D. Russell Looking North 115 There are also many examples of dialect and accent serving as a source of genuine local, regional and, for some, class pride.

class religion n. a religion predominantly followed by or appealing especially to a particular social class.

ΚΠ

1853 J. H. Newman Disc. addressed to mixed Congregations xii. 188 In this country, especially, there is nothing broader than class religions; the established form itself is but the religion of a class.

2001 W. Stark Sociol. of Relig. iii. ii. 258 By catering predominantly, if not exclusively, to them [sc. intelllectuals], Arianism would have made Christianity a class religion.

class reunion n. a social gathering of former classmates from school, college, or university, often organized to mark a certain number of years since graduation.

ΚΠ

1850 B. Silliman in Statistics of Class of 1837 (Yale Coll.) 3 Our own Class reunion, will, it is hoped, secure a very general attendance of members.

1935 R. W. Brown Hillikin xiv. 141 When you come back to your class reunions,..be sure to bring reports of what you have done to banish ugliness and make the world a livable place.

2000 S. Afr. Times UK 12 July 12/2 The 1950 matriculants of Glenwood High School are holding an informal Class Reunion on August 10.

class society n. a society divided or organized into social classes.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > distinction of class > society based on

class society1860

1860 H. Whitehead et al. Lectures xii. 192 A class society, when at its best, ought not to be a witness or a protest against the outer world, but a witness and protest in its favour.

1930 L. L. Lorwin in E. R. A. Seligman & A. S. Johnson Encycl. Soc. Sci. III. 540/2 In any class society the process of production is simultaneously a process of economic exploitation.

2006 N.Y. Times Mag. 17 Dec. 10/4 Schooling by itself cannot destratify a class society; class structure keeps reproducing itself.

class struggle n. a conflict or contention between different social classes; esp. (in Marxist ideology) the conflict of interests between the workers and the ruling class in a capitalist society; also as a mass noun. [In the specific Marxist use, after German Klassenkampf (1848 in K. Marx & F. Engels Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, the source translated in quot. 1850), perhaps itself after French lutte des classes (1828).]

ΚΠ

1839 Morning Chron. 19 Mar. The lowering of this great national question [sc. the Corn Laws] into a class struggle.

1850 H. Macfarlane tr. K. Marx & F. Engels Manifesto of German Communist Party in Red Republican 16 Nov. 171/2 As the settlement of the class struggle draws near, the process of dissolution goes on..within the ruling-class.

1939 ‘G. Orwell’ Crit. Ess. (1951) 11 From the ‘revolutionary’ point of view the class-struggle is the main source of progress.

2000 F. Keane Stranger's Eye 55 I feared a tirade against the injustice of the world, topped off with a ringing appeal for class struggle.

class subject n. (a) a subject taught in a classroom; (b) one set for examination in honours.

ΘΚΠ

society > education > learning > study > subject or object of study > [noun] > class-subject

class subject1838

school subject1846

1838 Mechanic's Mag. 29 282/1 The case is otherwise when we are told that a learned lecturer on natural philosophy, who ought, ex officio, to be deeply read in his vocation, has adopted the invention as a class-subject.

1882 Buxton in 19th Cent. Nov. 792 The class subjects include English grammar, history, etc.

1930 B. S. Burks et al. Promise of Youth ii. xiv. 249 In studying spelling as a class subject she did excellent work.

1995 J. McDermid in J. Purvis Women's Hist. v. 108 After 1893 domestic economy became a class subject.

2000 R. Peel et al. Questions of Eng. 68 In 1882 again a further rearrangement of the class subjects allowed for the introduction of English (Literature and Grammar).

class suit n. Law (originally and chiefly North American) = class action n..

ΘΚΠ

society > law > administration of justice > court proceedings or procedure > action of courts in claims or grievances > [noun] > a lawsuit > other types of action

mort d'ancestora1325

trespass on the case1429

action of detinue1467

mortancestry1471

replevin1515

non-finding1525

nisi prius1533

faint action1542

interpleadera1558

improbationc1575

assize1577

assumpsit1586

transitory action1594

trover1594

suit of the King's peace1607

detinuea1626

quia timet1628

choke-baila1637

reprobator1672

spulyie1678

petitory action1681

proprium1695

restitution of conjugal rights1720

amicable suit1768

noxal action1774

real action1818

witness action1892

class suit1894

non-jury1897

foreclosure action1905

class action1910

derivative action1934

paternity suit1945

1894 Toledo Legal News 28 July 347/1 The question to be determined is, whether the Compton suit was a representative or class suit.

1951 A. Reppy Civil Rights in U.S. vi. 145 A Browne [Junior High School] student, and the Browne, Parent-Teacher's Association brought separate class suits against the Board of Education, seeking to invalidate the city's segregated school system.

1983 B. A. K. Rider Insider Trading vi. 313 The expedient of a class suit allows actions to become viable which individually may not be worth pursuing. This could be particularly so in regard to insider trading and associated abuses such as the manipulation of corporate disclosure.

2008 Manila Standard (Nexis) 15 May It is highly probable that some lawyers and even ordinary consumers can get together and file a class suit.

class term n. a general name for a set or category of things; cf. class name n.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > language > naming > name or appellation > [noun] > other specific names or types of name

the Holy Namec1440

Singh1623

specification1633

indigitamenta1657

explicative1669

ethnic1791

household name1804

class term1811

book name1815

biverb1831

class word1837

family name1840

class name1843

ananym1867

papponymic1875

autonym1879

throne name1880

demonymic1893

ethnonym1894

a name to conjure with1901

praise name1904

self-reference1948

exonym1957

specific1962

endonym1970

demonym1990

1811 S. T. Coleridge Lect. 1808–19 on Lit. (1987) 21 Nov. I. 202 Virtue..is now become the Class-term of Moral Excellence in all its different species.

1893 Methodist Rev. Sept. 693 In dealing with a plurality of things the mind is forced to use class terms, and thus one word comes to stand for many objects.

1921 Administration May 716/2 There are various types of mental activity under the general class term of intelligence.

2000 L. J. Brinton Struct. Mod. Eng. vi. 135 Musical instrument is a class term including piano, violin,..marimbas, accordion, and so on.

class ticket n. chiefly Scottish (now historical) a ticket gaining admission to a professor's class, esp. one signed by the professor as confirmation that the student had completed the course to the professor's satisfaction.

ΘΚΠ

society > authority > lack of subjection > permission > [noun] > document which permits or authorizes > ticket > other forms of ticket

bone1788

class ticket1822

omnibus ticket1839

punch ticket1870

e-ticket1995

1822 A. Bower Edinb. Student's Guide 3 (heading) Class tickets.

1831 Rep. Royal Comm. Universities Scotl. 164 in Parl. Papers (H.C. 310) XII. 111 To connect Certificates with the presentation of Matriculation or Class Tickets as very much (if not entirely) a matter of course.

1889 A. M. Stoddart in T. T. Stoddart Angling Songs 29 His curriculum at the University included at first the usual classes, and the class-tickets which he preserved are many of them endorsed with the Professors' approbation.

1997 B. Brereton Law, Justice, & Empire 7 Entry into a professional course of study, such as law, depended not so much on possession of the M.A. degree as on demonstrating one's abilityto gain it by following the required courses to the professors' satisfaction as attested by class tickets.

class war n. = class struggle n.

ΚΠ

1845 Amer. Whig Rev. Aug. 114/1 The impulse is rather Jacobinic than in any strict sense Political even. It is the everlasting class war of a portion of those who have not against the mass of those who have.

1892 G. B. Shaw Fabian Soc. (Fabian Tract 41) 5 The Social-Democratic Federation..said..that its policy is founded on a recognition of the existence of a Class War.

1919 J. Buchan Mr. Standfast i. iii. 60 Their blessed class war, which cuts across nationalities.

2005 New Yorker 31 Oct. 87/1 We live in the age after the age of class war, when no idea has taken the place of socialism to carry the human aspiration for equality.

class warfare n. conflict and contention between different social classes; cf. class struggle n.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > social attitudes > [noun] > discrimination or inegalitarianism > by class or social rank

class warfare1840

classism1842

casteism1852

1840 Northern Star 25 Jan. 5/1 Good must come to the nation out of this class warfare for pre-eminence.

1846 Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Mag. 3 418 We have had too much class warfare lately.

1927 A. Huxley Proper Stud. 86 Those who would interpret all social phenomena in terms of class warfare.

2003 BusinessWeek 20 Jan. 32/3 The Democrats' class-warfare pitch fails because most of us see ourselves as middle class.

class warrior n. a person who engages in class war; spec. a person who campaigns against and is motivated by perceived injustices deriving from the class system.

ΚΠ

1908 G. R. S. Taylor Leaders of Socialism xii. 109 Marxians, Reformists, General Strikers, Class-warriors, and Class-unconscious folk are slowly closing the ranks for united parliamentary action against the men who are out to defend capitalism.

2004 Week 25 Sept. 35/2 Too much ground has been given to the class warriors and inverted snobs within the party who love a bit of toff-bashing even if it means riding roughshod over civil liberties.

class word n. = class name n.; cf. class term n.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > language > naming > name or appellation > [noun] > other specific names or types of name

the Holy Namec1440

Singh1623

specification1633

indigitamenta1657

explicative1669

ethnic1791

household name1804

class term1811

book name1815

biverb1831

class word1837

family name1840

class name1843

ananym1867

papponymic1875

autonym1879

throne name1880

demonymic1893

ethnonym1894

a name to conjure with1901

praise name1904

self-reference1948

exonym1957

specific1962

endonym1970

demonym1990

1837 Western Academician 1 341 That common conception, therefore, supplies the class-word, which renders the truth common.

1852 E. M. Goulburn Elem. Treat. Philos. Gram. i. 9 There is no object in existence corresponding to the class-word Mountain, Tree, &c.

1922 K. O. Thompson Techn. Expos. ii. 22 To say that a piano is an instrument is too chose to inclusive a class word.

2003 J. Bean XML for Data Architects iii. 65 Long-time data architects are often familiar with this challenge to naming and more specifically to class words.

classwork n. Education work done in the classroom, rather than at home or elsewhere; cf. homework n. 2.

ΘΚΠ

society > education > learning > study > subject or object of study > [noun] > exercises or homework

lesson?c1225

renderc1380

vulgars1520

practicec1541

theme1545

example1562

tax1564

repetition1579

exercise1612

praxis1612

recreation1633

pensum1667

vacation-exercisea1668

version1711

task1737

thesisa1774

dictation1789

challenging1825

holiday task1827

devoir1849

homework1852

vulgus1857

cram-book1858

rep1858

banco1862

prep1866

classwork1867

preparation1875

work card1878

vacation-task1904

1867 Times 10 June 6/4 The professor and his assistants have not merely..to give lectures, but to superintend classwork in study.

1939 T. L. Green Pract. Animal Biol. i. 2 For class work you will usually be provided with a few drops of the culture medium containing specimens.

2004 Sun Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi) (Nexis) 18 Mar. a4 Most of what we learn is not coming from the homework assigned, but rather the classwork in school.

C2. Compounds of the adjective.

class act n. colloquial a person or thing displaying impressive and stylish excellence.

ΚΠ

1977 C. McFadden Serial xxiii. 142 She had a class act going there.

1987 A. Miller Timebends (1988) iv. 203 Two or three times a year he would find himself rehearsing a script too substandard to broadcast on Cavalcade, radio's class act.

2006 Rugby League World Jan. 26/1 Thirty-years-old next year, the Australian has been a class act for Leeds over the last couple of seasons.

Derivatives

class-wise adv. according to class; in terms of class.

ΚΠ

1871 J. Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue iv. 177 The grammarian..forms rules in which he legislates class-wise for the words so grouped.

1987 C. Hanson in A. López Doña Licha's Island iv. 84 The definition of insanity is political and class-wise a very loaded term. You can be rich and be suffering from exhaustion but, if you're poor, they say you cracked up.

2003 J. Gasteiger & T. Engel Chemoinformatics 212 The information content (IC) of the system is additive, at least class-wise.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online June 2022).

单词	class
释义	classn.adj. Brit. /klɑːs/, /klas/, U.S. /klæs/ Forms: 1500s–1700s classe, 1600s– class. Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly a borrowing from Latin. Etymons: French classe; Latin classis. Etymology: < (i) Middle French, French classe class or division of the Roman people on the basis of property (a1359 in a translation of Livy), group of students or pupils who are taught together (1549), naval force, fleet (1559), lesson (1611; compare the earlier sense ‘classroom’ (1584)), and its etymon (ii) classical Latin classis class or division of the Roman people on the basis of property, body of citizens summoned for military service, naval force, fleet, division or category, division of pupils, band, group, squad, in scientific Latin also taxonomic category (1758 (in Linnaeus) or earlier), of unknown origin, perhaps an Etruscan loanword. Compare Catalan classe (1560), Spanish clase (c1400), Portuguese classe (1557 as †clace ), Italian classe (a1321 in sense ‘fleet’, 1623 in sense ‘group of similar objects’), also Dutch klasse (1591 as †classe ), German Klasse (late 16th cent. as †clas ; also †Classe ), Swedish klass (end of the 16th cent. as †class ), Danish klasse (17th cent. as †classe ). Compare classis n.A number of senses are not paralleled in French until later, e.g.: set or category of things differentiated according to grade or quality (1680), set or category of things or people having some property or attribute in common (1690), taxonomic category (1694 in biology), division or stratum of society consisting of people at the same economic level or having the same social status (1758), (colloquial or slang) high quality, distinction, refinement (1916). The original sense of classical Latin classis appears to have been ‘summons, call’. The word was associated by ancient writers with classical Latin calāre to call (see calends n.), but this is not generally accepted by modern etymologists. In early use, plural instances of the word are sometimes difficult to distinguish from the formally identical plural of classis n., e.g. in quot. 1567 at sense A. 1. A. n. I. Senses relating to groups, ranks, or categories. 1. Roman History. A group of Roman citizens who could meet a certain minimum wealth qualification; spec. each of the five groups into which property owners were divided for military service during the early Roman monarchy, supposedly introduced by Servius Tullius (578–535 b.c.).In the early modern period, Servius Tullius was widely held to have introduced six classes (see, e.g., quots. 1656, 1671, 1720). ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > distinction of class > level or grade > of Roman people class1533 century1586 classis1601 1533 J. Bellenden tr. Livy Hist. Rome (1901) I. 93/2 How King Servicus..dividit his pepill in sindri classis and centuris. 1567 W. Painter Palace of Pleasure II. vi. f. 44^v He deuided the Romanes into. v. bands called Classes, and into Centurias, which be bandes of an hundred men. 1604 C. Edmondes Observ. Cæsars Comm. II. vi. i. 3 The people being deuided first into their Tribes, and then into their classes and centuries. 1656 T. Blount Glossographia at Classical He divided the Romans into six great Armies or Bands which he called Classes; The valuation of those in the first Classe was not under two hundred pounds. 1671 M. D'Assigny tr. P. Gautruche Poet. Hist. iii. vii. sig. Gg2 A Century was an hundred Men belonging to one of the six Classes, into which Servius Tullius divided the Roman People. 1720 J. Ozell et al. tr. R. A. de Vertot Hist. Revol. Rom. Republic I. i. 24 Servius divided this great Number into six Classes, composing each Class of divers Centuries of Foot. 1793 W. Russell Hist. Anc. Europe I. viii. 473 If centuries of the first class disagreed, those of the second, the third, and of other inferior classes, were called in to vote. 1823 T. De Quincey Lett. Young Man in London Mag. Mar. 333 Such a man was rated as to his income in the third class, such another in the fourth, and so on; but he who was in the highest was said emphatically to be of the class, ‘classicus’. 1866 New Englander (New Haven, Connecticut) July 415 The ‘comitia centuriata’ were called to vote by classes, according to their wealth. 1929 L. Homo Rom. Polit. Instit. ii. ii. 38 In accordance with this double principle, the citizens are distributed into Classes, and the Classes are divided into Centuries. 1999 A. W. Lintott Constit. Rom. Republic 57 Cicero argues that a single century from among his hypothetical 96, the bulk of classes 2 to 5, had almost more members than the whole first class. 2. a. A set or category of things having some related properties or attributes in common, grouped together, and differentiated from others under a general name or description; a kind, a sort. ΘΚΠ the world > relative properties > kind or sort > [noun] > a kind, sort, or class > a number of things classed together class1583 coveya1592 parcel1607 batch1616 sisterhood1616 clan1667 band1690 set1690 lot1710 group1718 brotherhood1728 kit1785 package1947 1583 Sir T. Smith's De Republica Anglorum i. xxiv. 33 The fourth sort or classe amongest vs, is of those which the olde Romans called capite censij proletarij or operæ, day labourers, poore husbandmen, yea marchantes or retailers which haue no free lande, copiholders, and all artificers, as Taylers, Shoomakers, Carpenters, Brickemakers, Bricklayers, Masons, &c. 1608 Bp. J. King Serm. 5 Nov. 23 Both were transcendents not to be placed in the classes or rankes of hitherto experienced or practised wickednesse. 1664 J. Evelyn Kalendarium Hortense 82 in Sylva These [plants] we have distributed..into the three following classes. 1709 R. Steele Tatler No. 77. ⁋2 This Class of modern Wits I shall reserve for a chapter by itself. 1742 A. Pope New Dunciad 89 Whate'er of mungrel no one class admits, A Wit with dunces and a Dunce with wits. 1789 W. Belsham Ess. II. xli. 532 Civil incapacities affecting whole classes of citizens. 1818 S. T. Coleridge Friend (new ed.) i. vii. 83 The class of readers, to which he means to address his communications. 1835 A. Ure Philos. Manuf. 372 Comparing the wages paid to operatives of the different classes, sexes, and ages. 1870 G. Rolleston Forms Animal Life 132 A third nerve of the sympathetic class. 1926 F. B. Wiborg Printing Ink xx. 241 Special process inks are made for this class of printing. 1971 Daily Tel. 21 July 11/2 The normal carburettor-fed 2002 is one of the fastest cars in its class. 2006 P. Woit Not even Wrong xi. 159 Mathematicians may be divided into two classes; those who know and love Lie groups, and those who do not. b. Originally: an inclusive or general taxonomic category into which species of living organism (and formerly of mineral substance) are grouped. Later (Biology): one ranking above order and below phylum or division; a group of this rank.In early use the class was often treated as the principal subdivision of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. Long disused in geology and mineralogy, it has retained its prominence as a principal rank in zoological taxonomy, but is less distinct and hence less important in botany, where some recent schemes do not assign ranks to plant taxa above the level of order. ΘΚΠ the world > life > biology > taxonomy > taxon > [noun] > class or sub-class class1667 subclass1720 1667 Philos. Trans. 1665–6 (Royal Soc.) 1 364 In the Body of the Book, he enumerates all the Species, Alphabetically:..reducing them afterwards to certain Classes, hitherto used by Botanik Writers in their Histories of Plants. 1678 J. Ray in tr. F. Willughby Ornithol. Pref. sig. A4 Our principal aim in this Work..was..accurately to describe each Species, and to reduce all to their proper Classes or Genera. a1728 J. Woodward Attempt Nat. Hist. Fossils Eng. (1729) I. 1 (heading) Class I. Earths, and Earthy Substances. 1753 Chambers's Cycl. Suppl. at Botany The knowledge of the classes, genera, species..of plants. 1791 T. Martyn tr. J. J. Rousseau Lett. Elements Bot. (ed. 3) ix. 84 (heading) Explanation of the Classes in the Linnæan System. 1807 T. Young Course Lect. Nat. Philos. I. lviii. 731 The class monadelphia contains a few plants similar to the mallow; they are known by the union of the filaments at their bases into a cylinder: those of the next class have generally nine united, and one separate, whence the class is named diadelphia. 1847 W. B. Carpenter Zool.: Systematic Acct. I. §8 The principal groups, or classes, are subdivided into others, termed orders. 1872 D. Oliver Lessons Elem. Bot. (new ed.) ii. §4. 125 The characters of a Class are common not only to its Subclasses and Divisions, but to the..Orders, Genera, and Species included in that Class. 1944 R. Matheson Entomol. for Introd. Courses ii. 20 The order Acarina of the class Arachnida contains a most heterogeneous mass of animal forms. 1992 M. Ingrouille Diversity & Evol. Land Plants 4 The Class Angiospermopsida, for all flowering plants, in Stace (1989) is identical to the Division Magnoliophyta in Cronquist (1981) and not his Class Magnoliopsida, which includes only the dicotyledons. 2004 New Scientist 11 Sept. 12/4 The genus Homo belongs to the family Hominidae, which is part of the order Primates, which in turn belongs to the class Mammalia. c. Logic. A whole that consists of, or captures, all and only the entities satisfying a specified condition; spec. a collection of all the sets having a certain property. ΘΚΠ the mind > mental capacity > philosophy > logic > logical classification > [noun] > a division, group, or class general?a1425 genus1551 species1551 category1588 class1823 subcategory1842 tetrachotomya1856 1823 H. G. Ufford Elem. Treat. Logic ii. iii. 57 Animal embraces a more extensive class than bird, and bird a more extensive class than dove. 1843 J. S. Mill Syst. Logic I. i. v. §3 The proposition, Man is mortal, asserts, according to this view of it, that the class man is included in the class mortal. 1843 J. S. Mill Syst. Logic I. i.vii. §1. 160 By every general name which we introduce, we create a class, if there be any existing things to compose it. 1869 T. Fowler Elem. Deduct. Logic 64 We conceive that there is no limit to our power of making classes. 1932 M. H. Stone Linear Transformations in Hilbert Space i. 1 The word ‘space’ has gradually acquired a mathematical significance so broad that it is virtually equivalent to the word ‘class’, as used in logic. 1937 P. Bernays in Jrnl. Symbolic Logic 2 66 A set is a multitude forming a proper thing, whereas a class is a predicate regarded only with respect to its extension. 1953 S. K. Langer Introd. Symbolic Logic (ed. 2) v. 122 Now, there may be no wife of King Arthur; then there is simply nothing of that sort. That is the same as to say there is no element which is a member of that class. The class, therefore, is said to be empty, or to be a null class. 1958 A. Fraenkel & Y. Bar-Hillel Found. Set Theory ii. §6. 97 The appearance of antinomies which evolve from using overcomprehensive sets may be excluded through disallowing, by suitable axioms, the elementhood of the ‘dangerous’ sets. Those objects which cannot serve as members of other objects shall be called classes. 2002 Bull. Symbolic Logic 8 380 Every class of finite structures with a finite signature can be defined by an infinite set of sentences. d. Sailing. Each of a number of categories or types of yacht differentiated on the basis of various characteristics of construction, esp. in order to ensure fair competition in races. Cf. rating n.¹ 4. ΚΠ 1831 Sporting Mag. Oct. 466/2 At the termination of the match, the yachts in each class arrived at the goal as they are above arranged. 1858 Times 24 May 9/4 The prize for the best boat in this class was 50l. 1941 Sun (Baltimore) 20 Aug. 13/6 For the small-boat sailors races have been arranged in the following classes: Snipe, moth, penguin, winabout, Hampton. 1989 F. Davis Kohimarama 115 The American Frostbite Dinghy, a class in which very ‘keen’ American yachties raced in the winter. 1999 Canad. Yachting (Regatta Issue) June 9/3 Sailing events will be held July 25 to 31 at the Gimli Yacht Club. Classes that will be represented are Mistral, Laser, Laser Radial, Europe, Finn, Sunfish, Snipe, Hobie 16 and Lightning. e. Geometry. A property of a curve defined by the number of tangents which can be drawn to the curve from an arbitrary external point; a category of curves so defined. Also: a corresponding property of a surface. ΚΠ 1852 G. Salmon Treat. Higher Plane Curves iv. 203 The origin is a double point, and the curve is of the fourth class, and is the ‘limaçon de Pascal’. 1863 G. Salmon Conic Sections (ed. 4) x. 137 A conic is therefore a curve of the second degree and of the second class: but in higher curves the degree and class of a curve are commonly not the same. 1905 R. Hudson Kummer's Quartic Surface ii. 14 The number of nodes which a surface of order n can have is limited by its class. 1990 O. Bottema & B. Roth Theoret. Kinematics iv. 77 Its class being six means that six planes pass through an arbitrary point. 3. a. A set or category of things differentiated according to grade or quality; (in later use also) spec. each of the grades of accommodation, seating, or service provided for passengers on a journey by rail, sea, air, etc.Frequently with modifying word expressing the grade or ranking, the whole phrase often used adjectivally. club, economy, first, good-, high-, low-, second, third, world-class, etc.: see the first element. ΘΚΠ the world > relative properties > kind or sort > [noun] > a kind, sort, or class > according to quality rank1558 class1616 alliance1674 quality1765 grade1807 first (second) chop1823 run1833 1616 B. Jonson Mercurie Vindicated in Wks. I. 1007 Call forth the creatures of the first classe, and let them moue to the harmony of our heat. 1645 D. North Forest of Varieties iii. 181 Farre more sublime and better Authours have discovered as little order, and as much repetition; witnesse the Collections of Marcus Aurelius, St. Augustines Confessions, and some of a higher Classe. 1694 R. Burthogge Ess. Reason 234 A Conjurer of the Highest Class. 1727 D. Defoe Conjugal Lewdness 199 It is not long since we had a publick Example of this, and that in the highest Class of Dignity. 1747 Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 44 505 These are commonly called by Jewellers Occidental Stones: They are mostly the Produce of Europe..and are so named, in Opposition to those of a higher Class, which are always accounted Oriental. 1798 W. Jackson Four Ages 386 It is highly probable that the Greeks observed the near resemblance between the lowest class of human faces and monkeys. 1809 Times 19 May 2/3 The better class of inhabitants attacked and dispersed them. 1854 Brit. Farmer's Mag. 26 80/1 There was a large show of horses, and..those of a good class were not difficult to dispose of. 1879 G. A. Sala in Daily Tel. 26 Dec. Inability..to make up her mind as to what class she means to travel by. 1925 Brit. Weekly 19 Feb. 498/2 She was in the same class with the midinettes of Paris, with whom travelling Englishmen spend a passing hour and quickly forget. 1977 T. Murphy Famine i. i. 19 Bring out more food, Maeve. Call the fiddler. 'Tis a poor class of a wake ye're giving my daughter. 1998 B. Davis et al. Food & Beverage Managem. (ed. 3) i. 8 The in-flight catering service varies considerably with the class of travel. 2001 C. Whitehead John Henry Days i. 18 The interior of the car smells, not unpleasantly, of the better class of urinal cake. b. (a) Each of a number of categories to which a ship is assigned by a classification society based on the quality and condition of its hull, often with ‘A’ denoting the highest category (cf. sense A. 5).The best-known classification system, that used historically by Lloyd's Register, put each hull into one of five classes, A, E, I, O, and U, with those in class A being of the highest quality, those in class U of the lowest. Cf. A1 adj. 1. ΚΠ 1800 Reg. of Shipping 1801 (Key to Register-bk.) The Vessels marked A are of the First Class. 1860 Friend 7 May 278/2 Of the 10,548 vessels registered in Lloyd's book for the current year, we find 6218 are A1, or first-class, and but two are I, or the lowest class. 1902 W. W. Bates Amer. Navigation 305 In order to get cargoes that were bound to be covered by British insurance, it was necessary to hold a class of some grade in Lloyds Register. 1974 Mariner's Mirror 60 62 Length between perpendiculars 162... Class 100 A1. 2000 A. Antapassis in M. Huybrechts et al. Marine Insurance Turn Millennium II. 57 According to the technical standards each individual classification society stipulates, each ship so inspected is enrolled in a specific class. (b) The category or designation granted by a classification society to a ship which is judged to comply with regulations on quality of construction, safety, etc. Frequently in in class. ΚΠ 1868 Trans. Inst. Naval Architects 9 47 The shipbuilder..knows that if he is building an iron ship to class at Lloyd's, the weight of his ship will bear a certain proportion to the tonnage. 1875 Chronicle 19 Aug. 116/3 As regards the mode of ascertaining whether vessels can be kept in class, the British underwriters provide that a survey..shall take place every three years. 1921 Nauticus 26 Mar. 14/1 Many of the ex-German steamers sold require a considerable financial outlay to bring them up to Lloyd's class. 1957 Mariner's Mirror 43 16 At that date [sc. 1853] Lloyds had no rules or class for iron ships. 1999 A. D. Couper et al. Voy. of Abuse ii. 17 Classification societies have safety rules for construction and carrying out surveys to determine if a ship is still ‘in class’. 4. a. (a) A division or stratum of society consisting of people at the same economic level or having the same social status.Largely superseding order (order n. 7a). Frequently with modifying word expressing the ranking, as (in early use) higher, lower, (now more commonly) upper, middle, working (see the first element). See also peasant, professional, ruling, etc., at first element.In quot. 1583 at sense A. 2a class is used in the general sense but applied to social divisions, probably after sense A. 1. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > distinction of class > level or grade mannishOE placec1330 state1340 gree1382 conditionc1384 sectc1384 sortc1386 ordera1400 raff?a1400 degreea1425 countenancec1477 faction?1529 estate1530 race1563 calibre1567 being1579 coat1579 rang1580 rank1585 tier1590 classis1597 strain1600 consequence1602 regiment1602 sept1610 standinga1616 class1629 species1629 nome1633 quality1636 sort1671 size1679 situation1710 distinction1721 walk of life1733 walk1737 stage1801 strata1805 grade1808 caste1816 social stratum1838 station1842 stratum1863 echelon1950 1629 E. Bolton Cities Aduocate iii. 38 True it is, that Apprentiship, as it is a degree, so is it the lowest degree, or classe of men in London. 1631 J. Weever Anc. Funerall Monuments 687 To make vp the number, there are foure Pursuiuants in this Colledge, helpers and furtherers (likewise) in matters of Heraldry, although of an inferiour Classe. 1753 J. Nelson Ess. Govt. Children 306 I will select five Classes; viz. the Nobility, the Gentry, the genteel Trades,..the common Trades, and the Peasantry. 1762 O. Goldsmith Citizen of World I. xxxvii. 166 It was perhaps considered that crimes were more heinous among the higher classes of people. 1772 Hanway (title) Observations on the Causes of the Dissoluteness which reigns among the lower classes of the people. 1830 Decl. Birmingh. Pol. Union in Life T. Attwood (1885) x. 133 That the rights and interests of the middle and lower classes of the people are not efficiently represented in the Commons House of Parliament. 1856 R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits ix. 152 The habit of brag runs through all classes, from the Times newspaper..down to the boys of Eton. 1876 J. R. Green Short Hist. Eng. People (1882) iv. §4. 193 The tyranny of class over class. 1926 D. J. Saposs Readings in Trade Unionism vi. 93 (heading) As a traitor to his class, the ‘scab’ has no moral rights. 1970 C. T. Restrepo in I. L. Horowitz Masses in Lat. Amer. xiv. 517 Cultural ascent in society refers to the acquisition of those cultural forms corresponding to a higher class or social status. 2001 Times 28 Feb. ii. 3/4 It is the burden of the lower middle classes to keep the country running without taking any of the credit from the over-educated Oxbridge twits. (b) A system of ordering society whereby people are divided into strata of this type; the pattern of social division created by such a system; a person's position in society as defined by this. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > system of class1804 caste1816 caste system1816 social ladder1817 casteism1852 class system1877 classhood1878 pecking order1935 status system1939 peck order1950 1804 R. Jackson Systematic View Formation, Discipline & Econ. Armies 34 The foundations, and even some perfection of military qualities, as belonging to man individually, result from the peculiar properties of class or race, [etc.]. 1845 B. Disraeli Sybil II. iv. viii. 247 Walled out from sympathy by prejudices and convictions more impassable than all the mere consequences of class. 1887 T. Fowler Princ. Morals ii. ii. 99 An intense feeling of class or caste. 1928 G. B. Shaw Intell. Woman's Guide Socialism lxx. 337 By paying the director more than the directee it creates a difference of class between them. 1973 P. F. Lazarsfeld Main Trends in Sociol. iii. 40 There are basic concepts, such as class and mode of production. 1989 Third Text Summer 6 Cricket is a contemptible upper-class English game, one for the imbeciles and the chinless wonders, riddled with class and with racial prejudice. 2005 D. Kendall Framing Class i. 3 I am not suggesting that class is more important than race or gender in studying inequality. b. South Asian. = caste n. 2a. Cf. backward class n. at backward adv., adj., and n.² Additions. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > distinction of class > level or grade > a Hindu caste castea1624 class1794 varna1883 1794 W. Jones tr. Inst. Hindu Law 265 For a Súdra is ordained a wife of his own class. 1815 Monthly Mag. Jan. 631/1 The fourth or Sudra class, whose business was voluntarily to serve for hire. 1882 Contributor Feb. 139/1 The highest status of this union was the offspring of a Brahman with a woman belonging to the Kshatrya class. 1901 Jrnl. Anthropol. Soc. Bombay 5 87 The Brahmin class seems to have proceeded on the same lines. 2002 P. Jaideva Dalits in Early Buddhism i. 12 The Vaiśya class, the commoners, must have been naturally very large. c. In plural. With the. The rich or educated. Usually opposed to the masses. Now somewhat archaic. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social class > nobility > aristocracy or upper class > [noun] > distinct from the masses class1886 1886 W. E. Gladstone in Pall Mall Gaz. 3 May 11/2 Station, title, wealth, social influence..in a word, the spirit and power of class..The adverse host, then, consists of class, and the dependents of class..On these and many other great issues the classes have fought uniformly on the wrong side, and have uniformly been beaten. 1887 Punch 10 Sept. 111/1 Gladstone's gab about ‘masses and classes’ is all tommy rot. 1900 Harper's Weekly 24 Mar. 274/1 One saleslady..was made to declare that this beautiful deed of benevolence was calculated to bring the classes and the masses together again. 1936 N.Y. Woman 23 Sept. 22/3 The foregoing has been pretty much concerned with the potential sashayings of the classes. Now what do we find casting a blood-shot, iridium eye on the masses? 2003 Globe & Mail (Canada) (Nexis) 1 Nov. f2 For him, much of life was still about the class struggle, the masses against the classes. 5. a. gen. Each of a series of sets or categories which are denoted by letters of the alphabet, often with ‘A’ denoting the first or highest of such a series, descending through other letters. Frequently attributive. Cf. class A adj. ΚΠ 1791 Bee 28 Dec. 295 Let those comprehended in the class A, be the richest; those in the class B, the second; and so on. 1816 Literary Panorama Mar. 882 The Treaties marked Class A are Treaties of Accession and Subsidy... The Treaties marked Class B are Commercial and other Treaties. 1885 Proc. Royal Soc. 39 321 A system of awarding marks to class A watches, indicating the degree of relative efficiency exhibited during trial, was adopted. 1936 Boxers' Bull. Aug. 6/1 Class A. and Class B. referee certificates are awarded in an unsatisfactory fashion... There is little apparent reason to think that merit alone is the deciding factor. 1955 Archaeol. News Let. 6 15 Classes A and C should be known as ‘necked beakers’. 1991 Baseball Illustr. 27 51/3 Rookie catcher Ivan Rodriguez played well at instructional league and could jump this season from Class A to the majors. 1998 N.Y. Times 7 May c24/3 (advt.) Smaller tenants have a lot of choice downtown if they don't need to be in Class ‘A’ space... There are still a lot of great opportunities in Class ‘B’ buildings. b. In fire protection and firefighting: each of a number of categories of fire distinguished by the material involved and denoted by letters, ‘A’ being the most common, involving an ordinary combustible solid (rather than a flammable liquid or gas, live electrical equipment, etc.).Apart from class A and class D (fires involving combustible metals), the designations used in the United States differ from those used in the United Kingdom, Europe, and Australasia. ΚΠ 1929 U.S. Patent 1,700,465 1/1 On fires known as class 'A' fires (Underwriters' Laboratory Classification)..powder is unable, most of the time, to kill the embers. 1972 McGraw-Hill Yearbk. Sci. & Technol. 1971 5/2 A class C fire is any fire in which energized electrical equipment is involved. 1985 Rec. 18th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conf. 1164/1 The paper summarizes..flammability failure mechanisms, time-temperature profiles, and results of..environmental exposure tests of a candidate material suitable for both Class B and Class A fire-resistance levels. 1992 Harrowsmith Oct. 40/1 Because the powder does not penetrate below the burning surface to extinguish deepseated embers in a mattress fire, for example, plain tap water (the ingredient in an A-rated extinguisher) will do a better job on most class A fires than will an ABC unit. 2006 Fire Safety Risk Assessment : Offices & Shops (H.M. Govt.) ii. iii. 58/1 Typically for the Class A fire risk, the provision of one water-based extinguisher..will normally be adequate. c. Electronics. Each of a number of types of amplifier or modes of amplifier operation, designated by capital letters and distinguished by the relationship between input and output. Frequently attributive.In class A amplifiers, the base bias of a transistor, or the grid bias of a valve, is set such that there is an output current throughout the signal cycle and the output waveform is substantially the same as the input waveform. Class B and class C amplifiers operate on only half the input waveform, gaining in efficiency but producing greater distortion. Class AB amplifiers operate on more than half the input waveform but not all of it. More recently further classes have been devised. ΚΠ 1933 U.S. Patent 1,910,515 2/2 The tube being biased by a battery to operate over a linear portion of its mutual characteristic (as a class A amplifier). 1936 R. S. Glasgow Princ. Radio Engin. vii. 145 Class B operation is characterized by larger power output and higher efficiency than Class A. A Class C amplifier is one in which high output is the primary consideration and is employed only in radio transmitters. 1952 E. Armitage Wireless Fund. ix. 167 The advantage of Class B amplification is that the steady anode current flowing through the circuit when the valve is quiescent is very much smaller than under Class A conditions. 1978 Gramophone Apr. 1790/1 Sony offered the first class D (pulse width modulation) power amplifier. 1988 T. H. O'Dell Electronic Circuit Design ix. 142 High efficiency must always be associated with a rather narrow bandwidth,..and such narrow bandwidth power amplifiers have become classified as class C, D, E, F, G, H and S. 1998 Gramophone Jan. 145 (advt.) Simply Four's 24 watts of single-ended class A pentode power gives ample driving ability for almost all loudspeakers. 2006 D. Self Audio Power Amplifier Design Handbk. (ed. 4) xi. 319 Since the first edition of this book, Class-D amplifiers have increased enormously in popularity. d. U.S. Law. In some states: each of a number of categories of criminal offences typically followed by a letter denoting their level of seriousness, where ‘A’ represents those offences considered to be the most serious. ΚΠ 1964 Columbia Law Rev. 64 1474 A period of probation may be imposed upon conviction of any crime other than a Class A felony. 1971 Hartford (Connecticut) Courant 2 Oct. 13/1 The new code lists felonies in four lettered classes, A through D. 1982 Black Belt Jan. 21/3 The state of New York passed a law making possession of nunchaku a class D misdemeanor. 1996 W. Clarkson Deadly Seduction xvi. 218 The penalties for murder, a class-A felony, were thirty to sixty years in prison. 2007 J. Connolly Unquiet 201 Terrorizing was a Class D, and harassment was a Class E. e. British. Each of a number of categories of illegal drugs typically followed by a letter denoting their level of toxicity as specified by the United Kingdom government, where ‘A’ represents those drugs considered to be the most harmful, and whose unlawful sale or possession carries the highest penalties.The relevant legislation is the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. ΚΠ 1970 Times 12 Mar. 1/3 For possession of a class A drug like heroin the maximum sentence will be seven years or an unlimited fine, or both. 1979 Economist 28 July 24/3 For the unlawful possession of these drugs, the maximum penalty is five years' imprisonment, compared with seven years for the unlawful possession of class A drugs—cocaine, the opiates and LSD. 1986 Guardian (Nexis) 26 Sept. The increase in total seizures was entirely accounted for by ‘soft’, class B drugs. 1997 Sunday Times (Nexis) 12 Oct. Hellawell has been told not to stray from the government's tough line on all classes of illegal drugs. 2001 S. Walton Out of It (2002) v. 167 Britain has classified cocaine as Class A and has recently downgraded cannabis from Class B to Class C. 6. British. A division of candidates according to merit in a university examination for an honours degree. Also (chiefly Oxford University): an honours degree (now rare). Frequently opposed to pass.In most universities successful candidates are now divided into three classes, with the second class further divided into upper and lower: see first class adj. 2a, second class n., etc. ΘΚΠ the world > relative properties > kind or sort > [noun] > a kind, sort, or class > according to merit class1807 1807 E. Tatham Addr. to Convoc. Oxf. 15 In regard to the Schedule of the Three Classes, and particularly in regard to the First Class, there may be different opinions. 1839 D. Urquhart Spirit of East II. xviii. 174 That portion of each of these sciences which a man, reading for a class at Oxford, would have to study. 1860 M. Burrows Pass & Class (1866) 29 What particular class a man has obtained. 1863 London Univ. Cal., First B.A. 51 In the course of the following week the Examiners shall publish a list of the Candidates..arranged in three Classes, according to their respective degrees of proficiency. 1916 R. Bridges Let. 18 Jan. (1984) 698 He took his class at Oxford just when war was declared. 1927 C. E. Mallet Hist. Univ. Oxf. III. xxiii. 170 In 1830, a Fourth Class in Honours was provided, and the Honours examination was separated from the examination for the ordinary Pass degree. 1999 Nouse Mar. 3/1 The student in question will have his degree class reduced by one class. 7. a. High quality; outstanding ability or distinction; elegance or refinement of style, taste, or manner. Cf. sense B. Frequently somewhat colloquial. ΘΚΠ the mind > goodness and badness > quality of being good > excellence > [noun] goodnessOE mund?c1250 daintethc1290 bountyc1300 daintyc1300 excellencec1384 virtuea1393 excellency?a1400 nobilitya1400 meritc1425 singularity?c1450 fineness1523 admirationa1533 rareness1545 rightness1561 rariety1566 rarity1566 excellentness1569 beautya1586 admirableness1607 primeness1611 gallantry1650 eximiety1656 optimity1656 altesse1660 unexceptionableness1669 excellingness1701 quality1803 sterlingness1815 stupendosity1828 goodliness1832 superbness1832 unexceptionability1837 sweetness and light1867 class1884 rortiness1885 rippingness1903 superstardom1928 motherfucker1977 awesomeness1998 1884 Referee 24 Mar. 1/3 The elasticity necessary for anything like class at sprinting departs comparatively early. 1912 McClure's Mag. Feb. 28/2 ‘That old guy needs special treatment,’ he reflected, ‘and those simps ain't got class enough to give it.’ 1935 F. Marion Valley People xiii. 251 Say, there wasn't a dining-room in the Ladies' Home Journal that could touch it for real class. 1978 E. Chappell Rising Damp Compl. Scripts (2002) iv. v. 513/1 You've got class. I like the way you chassé around—the way you move like a Swiss clock. 1997 ‘Q’ Deadmeat 17 I chose Eau Sauvage by Christian Dior because it was French, exciting, it had a touch of class. b. no class and variants: of no worth; of low quality, inferior. ΘΚΠ the mind > attention and judgement > importance > unimportance > [noun] > one who is unimportant > worthless > collectively garbage1648 trash1750 worthless1758 no class1897 1897 Daily Tel. June in J. R. Ware Passing Eng. Victorian Era (1909) 182/2 Soldiers! Why, soldiers ain't no class. 1927 R. Rees Life's what you make It xii. 161 I'm not ‘much class’. 1927 R. Rees Life's what you make It xii. 162 I am ‘no class’. 1969 A. Hunter Gently Coloured iv. 52 I'm no class, I know that. I'm where I belong, a working policeman. 1996 Conjunctions Nov. 342 He tell Berry..I ain't no class for he. c. Originally U.S. Horse Racing. With the. The best of a group of competitors. Frequently in the class of the field. ΚΠ 1898 Chicago Tribune 21 July 4/1 Our Gertie was the best and in a safe spot. She was by far the class of the field. 1904 Morning Telegraph Racing Chart Bk. Aug. 77 Albert Fir was the class of the lot; outrun in the beginning, he closed fast at the end and won going away. 1922 Railwayan Sept. 10/1 With such sterling players..in the line-up the White Sox proved to be the class of the league. 1942 Billboard 14 Feb. 77/2 The two-way and the four-way models have proved to be the class of the field. 1966 Amer. Motorcycling Apr. 34/3 Yoshio Itoh on his 50cc Suzuki was the class of the under 100cc group. 2006 Rowing News Nov. 37/3 The Serbian crew were the class of the field and easily won the race. 8. Immunology. Each of three categories of protein encoded by genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and denoted by Roman numerals. Usually attributive, designating these proteins or the genes which code for them.Class I molecules, found in most nucleated mammalian cells, are polymorphic proteins which continually present peptide fragments at the cell surface, where any viral or other non-self antigens can be recognized by cytotoxic T cells. Class II molecules act similarly in phagocytic cells of the immune system, presenting fragments of engulfed proteins for recognition by T helper cells. Class III molecules include various serum proteins involved in the complement system. ΚΠ 1977 J. Klein in D. Götze Major Histocompatibility Syst. Man & Animals x. 340 The term class, in reference to the MHS [= major histocompatibility system], is introduced here for the first time. The products of different classes differ in their biochemical properties, phenotypic expression, and function. Three major classes..have been recognized so far. I shall designate them simply class I, class II, and class III. 1984 M. J. Taussig Processes in Pathol. & Microbiol. (ed. 2) ii. 182 Class II molecules are involved in cellular interactions (immunoregulation) as well as in recognition of antigen by T cells. 1986 New Eng. Jrnl. Med. 22 May 1360/2 Such differences at Class I genes do not influence the diabetogenicity of these chromosomes, suggesting that the actual diabetogenic genes are within the Class II region. 2007 Nature 6 Dec. 799/2 The highly variable HLA genes are clustered in two loci..in the MHC region on chromosome 6... They encode two classes of proteins: the HLA class I and the HLA class II molecules. II. Senses relating to the instruction of students. 9. a. A group of students or pupils who are taught together.In later use relating to schools usually denoting each of a number of subdivisions of all the pupils who are at the same stage, in contrast with (in the United Kingdom) form or year, or (in North America) grade. ΘΚΠ society > education > learning > learner > [noun] > group of students or pupils class1560 siege1566 classis1643 reading party1781 lecture1848 study circle1882 seminar1889 study group1892 masterclass1901 1560 J. Knox et al. Buke Discipline in J. Knox Wks. (1848) II. 214 In the secound colledge, in the first classe, one reader onlie in the ethicques, oeconomicques and politiques. 1585 W. Creichton Let. in True & Plaine Declar. of Horrible Treasons W. Parry 23 Beeing returned out of the Closse within one of the classes of the Colledge, hee proponed to me of new the matter, with his reasons and arguments. 1631 J. Shirley Schoole of Complement iii. ii. 36 Sir, I receiue your sonne, and will wind vp his ingeny, feare it not, but first he must be vnder my Vsher, who must teach him the postures of his body, how to make legs and cringes, and then he shall bee aduanced to a higher Classe. 1697 D. Defoe Ess. Projects 265 Every School to have 10 Classes of 10 each. 1730 J. Clarke Ess. Educ. Youth (ed. 2) 209 The Boys of the upper Classes may be admitted. 1768 Adventures Oxymel Classic I. xxiii. 235 The 'squire had already taken up his station very peaceably at the rear of his class for six weeks. 1828 E. Bulwer-Lytton Pelham I. ii. 11 I was in the head class when I left Eton. 1875 Edinb. Univ. Cal. 1875–6 68 Examinations on the work done in the Class. 1887 Proc. 11th Convent. Amer. Instructors of Deaf 236 I will go around the class..never looking at the children, because I might read their lips. 1912 T. E. Lawrence Lett. (1938) 144 I took a class of four (including our Commissaire) in local history. 1954 G. Willans How to be Topp vii. 75 It is a good wheeze then if you have a real Fr. boy in the class. Then you sa innocently What is it like in France, sir? 1992 I. Pattison More Rab C. Nesbitt Scripts 138 Teacher..(He looks around the class and sees a girl. ) You girl! Clean the board! b. An occasion when pupils meet with their teacher for instruction; the instruction given on such an occasion, a lesson; (frequently in plural) a course of instruction.In later use frequently without article as the object of a preposition, as in class.art, Bible, biology, dancing-class, etc.: see the first element. ΘΚΠ society > education > teaching > means of teaching > [noun] > class or course course1605 discipline1676 class1691 curriculum1824 cursus1875 1691 A. Wood Athenæ Oxonienses I. 80 He went through the usual classes of Logick and Philosophy with unwearied industry. 1764 Rep. State Warrington Acad. 2 In the Latin class the classics are read. 1825 Wardrop in M. Baillie's Wks. I. Life 9 He there attended the Greek and Latin classes during the first two seasons. 1859 H. S. Reid Rep. State Pop. Educ. North Western Provinces 11 All teaching classes in English, as well as in Sanskrit. 1893 Educ. Rev. May 423 His up-to-dateness..in the right view of handling history in class. 1937 Life 1 Nov. 43/2 The students who tote green cloth bags filled with books up the steps of Langdell Hall..and go to classes in Austin Hall. 1945 N. Streatfeild Saplings l. 241 He flared up and argued about anything. He even did it in class. 1987 J. Wheatcroft Beholder's Eye 240 She was late for class. But she didn't hurry. 1992 M. Anderson Impostors in Temple i. 25 During this time I have taught classes and seminars, supervised doctoral dissertations,..eaten at many faculty clubs. 2000 A. Bourdain Kitchen Confid. (2001) 38 I took classes in food-handling, egg cookery, salads, stocks, soups, basic knifework. 10. Originally and chiefly North American. All of the students at a university, college, or school of a particular year, who matriculate at the same date and typically graduate together. Frequently followed by of and the year of graduation. Also in extended use. ΘΚΠ society > education > learning > learner > college or university student > [noun] > division containing all students of same year class1672 year1809 1672 S. Sewall Let. 16 Mar. in Let.-bk. (1886) I. 19 Remember me kindly to all our Class. 1684 in Harvard College Rec. (1925) I. 77 Mr. Samuel Mitchell was..desired to undertake ye charge of ye class of ye Sophimores untill further order. 1766 T. Clap Ann. Yale-Coll. 14 The Senior Class were removed to Milford... The rest of the Students were removed to Saybrook. 1798 A. Holmes Life Ezra Stiles 65 In February, 1756, he addressed a letter to the senior class, at Yale College. 1828 Harvard Reg. 1827–8 (advt.) In August 1827 the editorial department was entrusted to three gentlemen of the class of 1828. 1833 B. Peirce Hist. Harvard Univ. App. xiii. 56 The following is the first class of Harvard College, as it stands in the catalogue: 1642. Benjamin Woodbridge,..Georgius Downing,..Johannes Bulkley, [etc.]. 1882 R. H. Stoddard in H. W. Longfellow Poet. Wks. (rev. ed.) p. x It was a remarkable class in which he found himself, for it contained..Nathaniel Hawthorne, George B. Cheever, and J. S. C. Abbott. 1887 J. E. Cabot Mem. Emerson 62 The class of 1821 [sc. Emerson's] held for fifty years its annual reunion at Cambridge. 1931 H. F. Pringle Theodore Roosevelt II. ix. 381 Meyer..had been a class ahead of him at Harvard. 1959 Tech (Mass. Inst. Technol.) 8 Dec. 1 Attention, Class of '62, Victors of Field Day, '59, Hackers of MIT—Become Aware. Like a Sour Hour for Sophomores at Sammy house. 1976 Times 17 Dec. 30/3 Labour's class of '71 was..a gentrified council, dominated by professional people from Putney rather than people from the working-class areas. 2003 N.Y. Times 2 July a18/2 As the valedictorian of the class of 2003, he had so many people to thank. III. In other senses derived directly from the Latin. †11. A fleet, a navy; (also) a ship. Obsolete. rare. ΘΚΠ society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > [noun] shipc725 beamOE boardOE bargea1300 steera1300 vessela1300 treea1382 loomc1400 man1473 ark1477 bottom1490 keela1547 riverboat1565 craft1578 pine1592 class1596 flood-bickerer1599 pitchboard1599 stern-bearer1599 wooden horse1599 wooden isle1603 water treader?1615 water house1616 watercraft1618 machine1637 prore1642 lightman1666 embarkation1690 bark1756 prowa1771 Mudian1813 bastiment1823 hooker1823 nymph1876 M.F.V.1948 society > armed hostility > hostilities at sea > navy > a naval force or fleet > [noun] fleeta1000 floteOE ship-ferda1122 navya1382 armyc1475 armada1533 class1596 naval1627 armadilla1685 Grand Fleet1696 armament1698 maritime power1711 1596 J. Dalrymple tr. J. Leslie Hist. Scotl. (1888) I. 202 He furnissed a meruellous classe, quhilke to the sey he sett ladne with a multitude innumerable of men of armes. 1656 T. Blount Glossographia Classe (classis), a ship, or Navy. 12. Christian Church. †a. Chiefly Scottish. In the Presbyterian system: a classis; a presbytery. Obsolete. ΘΚΠ society > faith > church government > ecclesiastical discipline > court > presbyterian > [noun] > presbytery eldership1557 seniory1572 presbytery1581 classis1591 consistorya1593 class1644 colloquya1672 colloque1846 elderhood1860 1644 S. Rutherford Due Right of Presbyteries 424 Mr. Mather and Mr. Thomson against Herle, c. 2. p. 17. 18. say we do much Judaizein that we multiply appeales upon appeales, from the Congregation to a Classe, then to a Synod, then to a nationall assembly, then to an œcumenick councell. 1661 J. Gauden Pillar of Gratitude 7 No way subject either to the Papal Triple Crown, or to the hundred Eyes of any Presbyterian Class, nor yet to the hundred Hands of any Independent Junto. 1766 Declar. Presbytery Ballymena 1/2 We declare that the first Appearance which the above-named John Murray made among us in Character of a Preacher was the latter End of June 1761, he having preached for one of our Members, upon the Authority of a Licence that he produced from a Class of Ministers in Northumberland. 1785 T. Warton in J. Milton Poems (new ed.) 327 (note) The city of London being distributed into twelve classes, each class chose two ministers and four lay-elders, to represent them in a Provincial Assembly. 1838 Sc. Christian Herald 3 199/1 The Class, or Presbytery, consisted of all the ministers and several of the elders within the bounds. b. A subdivision of a Methodist congregation, meeting together under the direction of a class leader. ΘΚΠ society > faith > church government > laity > congregation > [noun] > Methodist subdivision class1742 1742 J. Wesley Jrnl. 15 Feb. (1872) II. 528 It was at length agreed..that the whole society should be divided into little companies or classes—about twelve in each class. 1791 J. Hampson Mem. J. Wesley III. 82 Each society is divided into companies of ten or fifteen, called classes; each of which regularly meets the leader once a week. 1857 Christian Misc. 176/1 I invited him to my class. 1885 Minutes Wesleyan Conf. 361 The Quarterly visitation of the Classes is our most important official work. 1928 H. K. Rowe Mod. Pathfinders of Christianity x. 119 To pay for the new building every Methodist class underwrote the scheme with a pledge of a penny a week per member. 2000 D. Andrews Methodists & Revolutionary Amer. 1760–1800 i. i. 35 As increasing numbers of British migrants poured into North America in the late 1760s, it was only a matter of time before a British Wesleyan ‘discovered’ the various classes and societies now meeting in Wesley's name. 13. Cambridge University. = classis n. 4. Now rare.Plural examples are typically indistinguishable from those of classis, early examples of which may possibly indicate a slightly earlier date for class. ΘΚΠ society > communication > book > library or collection of books > library, place, or institution > [noun] > stall, stack, or shelf in library classis1631 interclassis1678 class1686 stall1709 open shelf1821 stack1879 1686 in R. Willis & J. W. Clark Archit. Hist. Univ. Cambr. (1886) III. 399 He shall place and keep every book in its respective Classis, and in the proper place of that Class. He shall..cause..the Classes together with the Books be cleansed from Dust once a month. 1818 in R. Willis & J. W. Clark Archit. Hist. Univ. Cambr. (1886) I. 114 That the shelves in the Classes..be newly arranged..and the Classes cleaned and varnished. 1886 R. Willis & J. W. Clark Archit. Hist. Univ. Cambr. II. 750 There are also shelves against the walls between the end of each class and the windows. 1901 J. W. Clark Care of Bks. 243 The word ‘class’ (classis) is used..instead of the ancient ‘stall’... Gradually the term was extended until it reached its modern signification, namely the shelves under a given window together with those on the sides of the bookcases to the right and left of the spectator facing it. B. adj. Ranking in the top class; showing impressive stylishness in appearance, performance, or behaviour; classy.In early use chiefly of racehorses or athletes, esp. in not class enough. ΘΚΠ the mind > goodness and badness > quality of being good > excellence > [adjective] > very excellent or first-rate gildenc1225 prime1402 rare1483 grand1542 holy1599 pre-excelling1600 paregal1602 classic1604 of (the) first rate1650 solary1651 first rate1674 superb1720 tip-top1722 tip-top-gallant1730 swell1819 topping1822 of the first (also finest, best, etc.) water1826 No. 11829 brag1836 A11837 A No. 11838 number one1839 awful1843 bully1851 first class1852 class1867 champion1880 too1881 tipping1887 alpha plus1898 bonzer1898 grade A1911 gold star1917 world-ranking1921 five-star1936 too much1937 first line1938 vintage1939 supercolossal1947 top1953 alpha1958 fantabulous1959 beauty1963 supercool1965 world-class1967 primo1973 1867 Edinb. Evening Courant 8 Nov. Salamanca is in the same stable, but he is not class enough to win such a handicap. 1872 Times 18 Mar. 7/2 Scots Grey and Stella are not class enough to win. 1874 Hotten's Slang Dict. (rev. ed.) 119 Class, the highest quality or combination of highest qualities among athletes. ‘He's not class enough’, i.e., not good enough. ‘There's a deal of class about him’, i.e., a deal of quality. 1924 H. de Sélincourt Cricket Match ii. 26 If he'd had coaching, he'd be a class bowler. 1927 Chambers's Jrnl. 4/1 She [sc. a filly] arrowed over her hurdles like the ‘class’ young lady that she was. 1954 ‘N. Blake’ Whisper in Gloom i. iii. 40 It was a class neighbourhood, thought Foxy, surveying the elegant, freshly-painted houses. 1989 W. Deverell Mindfield 91 The Lord Swinburne was class. You get the typical guy, a drink and a little poke before confronting the wife over dinner; she's pleased because he smells so clean, he must have stopped off at his health club. The Lord Swinburne—private spa for gentlemen. 2004 Rugby World Feb. 40/2 I had ten minutes against him in the match last August and he is a class player. Phrases P1. top (also head) of the class: (chiefly with the) the rank or position of the best student in a school class; also in extended use. ΚΠ 1781 V. Knox Liberal Educ. 26 The boy of an ingenious mind, who stands at the head of his class, ranks, in the microcosm of a school, as a hero. 1796 Sun 9 Sept. 4/1 The teachers promote emulation in the usual way, by making the top of the class the post of honour. 1825 J. Bentham Rationale Reward 20 He who stands at the head of the class begins the exercise. 1899 J. M. Mitchell In W. India 314 You clever boys are near the top of the class. 1939 Pop. Sci. Monthly Mar. 14/1 If you can solve this one in fifteen seconds flat, go to the head of the class. 2005 S. Whiteside tr. ‘W. Ming’ 54 55 He does it just because that's what he's like, he always wants to be top of the class. P2. in a class of one's own: in an unequalled or unique position; unsurpassed, esp. in excellence or performance. Cf. in a league of one's own at league n.² Additions. ΚΠ 1819 T. Roebuck Ann. College of Fort William 198 His superiority is such as to rank him in truth in a separate class of his own; and he has left both his contemporary competitors, and every Student of Arabic at a distance. 1853 T. De Quincey Ess. on Poets 3 Their merit in fact is not only supreme but unique; not only supreme in their general class, but unique as in a class of their own. 1938 Times 21 Oct. 18/1 (advt.) Its delicious flavour, and its freedom from deleterious ingredients, place it in a class of its own. 1977 Economist (Nexis) 26 Mar. 132 The New Yorker's film critic..is in a class of her own... She is a born writer, whose prose comes pinging from the page as if mere words can barely keep up with her. 2006 Athletics Weekly 14 Dec. 28/2 He was in a class of his own before Stuttgart but now I know he is human and he can be beaten. Compounds C1. Compounds of the noun. a. General attributive. (a) In sense A. 4. (i) With sense ‘of or relating to social class; relating to particular social classes, esp. the upper classes’. class consideration n. ΚΠ 1841 Metropolitan July 88 This is..a class consideration, and every class, or rather every representation of a class, argues the question well for the interest of the advocated section of the community. 1926 Times 28 Oct. 5/7 Class considerations were, in these days, apt to be brought in by workpeople just as they used to be brought in by the landed gentry. 2000 B. V. Lal Fiji before Storm i. 3 Class considerations and regional interests feature more prominently in Fijian political calculations than most outsiders often realise. class dialect n. ΚΠ 1861 F. M. Müller Lect. Sci. Lang. ii. 55 Class dialects, too, would spring up; the dialects of servants, grooms, shepherds, and soldiers. 1930 J. R. Firth Speech viii. 62 Standard English, on the other hand, is a class dialect; to adapt Lord Chesterfield, it is the ‘usage of the best companies’. 2005 G. Jones in P. B. Messent & L. J. Budd Compan. M. Twain 133 In this sense, German behaves like one of Twain's many class dialects: it reveals and contains the intellectual culture of its speaker. class education n. ΚΠ 1841 Northern Star 18 Sept. 2/3 The obstacles were held to be..prejudice, class legislation, and class education. 1923 A. Huxley Antic Hay 33 It won't be the owning of a little money that'll get a man into trouble. It'll be his class-habits, his class speech, his class-education. 2005 in J. Russo & S. L. Linkon New Working-Class Stud. iv. xiv. 232 In the formative days of industrial unionism an analytical class education went hand-in-hand with building strong unions. class grievance n. ΚΠ 1841 Morning Chron. 14 Dec. The Corn-laws are not a class grievance. Their repeal is not a class interest. 1853 C. Dickens Bleak House vii. 58 The turkey..always troubled with a class-grievance (probably Christmas). 2006 Independent (Nexis) 31 July 27 Mrs Thatcher, a devout monarchist, had no class grievances. class interest n. ΚΠ 1828 J. S. Mill in Westm. Rev. 9 255 Party interests, and class interests..appear to influence the train of events. 1920 B. Russell Pract. & Theory Bolshevism IV. 155 The Government has a..class-interest quite distinct from those of the genuine proletarian. 2000 Out Mar. 104/2 Representing queerness usually means representing the class interests of white men. class journal n. ΚΠ 1858 P. L. Simmonds Dict. Trade Products Pref. p. iv As the city editor of a daily paper, and contributing largely to many class journals, I especially felt the want of a work of easy reference, defining the moneys, weights, and measures of the foreign countries with which we are engaged in trade. 1888 Pall Mall Gaz. 4 May 11/2 The class journals..classify and concentrate all the news that affects a particular trade for the benefit of those engaged therein. 1909 Amer. Hist. Rev. 14 434 Class journals now give much that was once in the daily. 2007 O. S. Buckton Cruising with R. L. Stevenson 102 Significant among such ‘class journals’ were the magazines designed for young readers, including James Henderson's Young Folks (founded 1871), in which Stevenson published three of his novels. class legislation n. ΚΠ 1838 Northern Liberator 27 Oct. Mr Taunton followed, and witheringly denounced class legislation. 1856 R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits iv. 56 Bitter class-legislation. 2004 J. F. Witt Accidental Republic vi. 160 It was the judiciary—warriors against the encroachments of combination, class legislation, and paternalism—that would rescue the principles on which the republic rested. class position n. ΚΠ 1840 Rep. Assistant Hand-loom Weavers' Commissioners iv. Index p. x Comforts proportionate to their class position as lowly-skilled labourers. 1915 Boilermakers' Jrnl. May 362/1 The workers as a class understand their ‘class position’ in human society. 2008 M. Pattillo in A. Lareau & D. Conley Social Class 285 The use of class position to exclude individuals who are poor is a crucial pattern in neighborhoods. class privilege n. ΚΠ 1837 Brighton Patriot 10 Oct. Nor is any good to be expected until a voice in the representation is recognised as a common right, instead of being manufactured into a class privilege. 1956 J. B. Wilson Lang. & Pursuit of Truth ii. 57 Men make..protests against particular types of privilege..for instance, against class-privilege. 2006 S. Sullivan Revealing Whiteness 12 A product of male and class privilege, middle-class white women's self-abnegation is often an ideal tool for the furthering of white privilege. class status n. ΚΠ 1849 Eliza Cook's Jrnl. 1 Dec. 65/2 A man, once having taken his class status, must run all risks to keep it up. 1943 D. G. Haring Blood on Rising Sun ix. 181 Clothing was prescribed according to class status. 2005 Vanity Fair (N.Y.) Oct. 200/2 People whose very class status was heretofore involved with reading a broadsheet turn out to have no qualms at all about a tab. class structure n. ΚΠ 1909 Muscatine (Iowa) Jrnl. 1 Oct. 2/3 Thursday, Oct. 21.—O. C. Wilson, subject, The class structure of capitalist society. 1958 P. Shore in N. Mackenzie Conviction 51 In spite of war-socialism and the Attlee Government..the class structure seems as strong as it ever was. 2005 New Internationalist July 25/2 Japanese feudal society left a class structure that placed ‘humble people’ at the bottom. class variety n. ΚΠ 1843 T. C. Haliburton Attaché xv. 40/1 You have class variety here [sc. in England], but no individuality. They are insipid, and call it perlite. The men dress alike, talk alike, and look as much alike as Providence will let 'em. 2001 J. L. Jackson Harlemworld 221 Ghettos like Harlem are usually viewed as unilaterally poor (class variety being downplayed or ignored outright). (ii) With reference to conflicts, differences, or antagonisms between classes, esp. between the working class and the ruling classes. class antagonism n. ΚΠ 1848 Freeman's Jrnl. (Dublin) 10 July He was not one of those who wished to inflame class prejudices, or maintain class antagonism. 1850 tr. K. Marx & F. Engels Manifesto Communists 23 Nov. 183/2 The old Bourgeois Society, with its classes, and class antagonisms. a1950 ‘G. Orwell’ England your England (1953) 21 Class antagonisms are not all-important. 2004 Social Scientist 32 66 Fascism transforms class antagonism into racial, ethnic, cultural, religious and geo-political antagonisms. class bar n. ΚΠ 1921 W. L. George Hail Columbia! ii. 69 Every boy knows that nothing need stop him, that no class bar will cut him off from any position or any office. 2007 in J. Rodden Cambr. Compan. G. Orwell 46 In The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell denies himself the naïve satisfaction of belief that he could breach the class-bar in England of the Depression years so easily. class barrier n. ΚΠ 1844 Bristol Mercury 28 Sept. 6/1 Whatever..tends to impart this most useful knowledge, and, by so imparting, to break down artificial ‘class’ barriers. 1889 G. B. Shaw Fabian Ess. Socialism 21 You set your life apart from theirs by every class barrier you can devise. 1945 A. Koestler Yogi & Commissar iii. iii. 224 A crumbling of class-barriers. 2008 Mirror (Nexis) 18 Feb. 14 The Colleen Bawn has charmed generations of theatre goers with the tale of a peasant girl who breaks down class barriers to wed her wealthy lover. class bias n. ΚΠ 1846 Northern Star 26 Sept. 4/5 The great mass of the ‘counsellors’..come with a decided personal and class bias to its discussion. 1931 G. J. Renier English vi. 109 Impartiality..requires absence of class-bias. 2005 T. McCaskell Race to Equity xii. 202 The committee also raised a fuss about the Board's submission to the Royal Commission on Learning,..which omitted any mention of issues such as class bias, homophobia, and sexism from its discussion of equity. class boundary n. ΚΠ 1859 A. Fonblanque Man of Fortune x. 119 They [sc. the young men of the present day]..overstep all proper class boundaries. 1959 V. Packard Status Seekers (1960) i. 5 Class boundaries are contrary to the American dream. 2000 M. O'Donnell & S. Sharpe Uncertain Masculinities ii. 50 Educationalists themselves may well have contributed to the extent to which young people seem to be able to think and act outside of class boundaries. class conflict n. ΚΠ 1843 Liverpool Mercury 22 Dec. 422/1 It is calculated, if sound, to terminate a class conflict, whose every onward step is stamped with increased energy. 1898 G. B. Shaw in Sat. Rev. 29 Jan. 139/1 The alternative of achieving a real superiority or going ignominiously under in the class conflict. 1919 J. L. Garvin Econ. Found. Peace 106 Our whole future depends upon securing..better relations between Capital and Labour instead of Class-conflict. 2004 Times Lit. Suppl. 6 Aug. 29/1 The term ‘East End’ dates from the 1880s when, even more than the poorer districts south of the Thames, East London became a focus for anxieties about urban poverty and class conflict. class dictatorship n. ΚΠ 1900 Times 28 Sept. 3/3 Even if all the Ministers were Socialists it might be necessary to have a class dictatorship such as the bourgeois revolutionists established in 1793. 1941 ‘G. Orwell’ Lion & Unicorn iii. 112 An English Socialist government..will not set up any explicit class dictatorship. 2007 W. Price Abolition of State i. iv.44 The so-called dictatorship of the proletariat—in Marx's classical conception—was to be different from all previous class dictatorships in certain ways. class difference n. ΚΠ 1823 Times 27 June 1/4 Surely, any mixture in party dissensions, any partisanship in religious, in political disputes, anything like entering into the detail of class differences..would be that sort of stain from which, above all others, the ermine ought most immediately to be cleared. 1879 S. A. Barnett Let. 21 Dec. in H. Barnett Canon Barnett (1918) I. xix. 233 Our serving-man..has no sense of class difference. 1960 20th Cent. Apr. 373 People do not necessarily weaken class differences..because they can climb from one social class to another. 2006 J. E. McMains Glamour Addiction 12 Glamour is principally generated via class difference. class divide n. ΚΠ 1959 A. Briggs Age of Improvem. 301 The economic, educational and temperamental gulf between skilled and unskilled workers was wide enough for John Stuart Mill to consider it the equivalent of a class divide. 2003 Guardian 16 Aug. 52 Two talent shows separated by a gigantic class divide: Fame Academy is stiflingly middle-class, while Pop Idol is sheer Asda-economy-range plebbish. class division n. ΚΠ 1841 Northern Star 16 Oct. 7/6 Our evils are more of a social than political character; they arise from our class divisions. 1857 Punch 23 10 Christianity repudiates anything like class divisions among its own followers. 1961 New Left Rev. Jan. 36/1 Traditional class divisions are gradually breaking down. 2000 K. Leech in A. Hastings et al. Oxf. Compan. Christian Thought 676/2 Socialism is the advocacy of, and the struggle for, a society in which class divisions based on differences of economic and other forms of power are abolished. class enemy n. [in later use after Russian klassovyj vrag (1906 or earlier) and its possible model, German Klassenfeind (1891 or earlier; 1914 in the passage translated in quot. 1918)] ΚΠ 1893 Freeman's Jrnl. (Dublin) 9 Sept. 5/6 The first great blow that was struck for popular liberty..against the class enemies of the franchise. 1918 L. Trotzky Bolsheviki & World Peace vi. 161 Why did it [sc. the Social Democracy] take upon itself the responsibility for acts undertaken by its irreconcilable class enemies [Ger. Klassenfeinden]? 1951 F. Beck & W. Godin Russ. Purge vii. 202 The terrible lot of ‘class enemies’. 1957 R. N. C. Hunt Guide to Communist Jargon iv. 8 To assert that democracy—i.e. the ‘rule of the people’—can be achieved under the domination of its ‘class enemy’..would be absurd. 2001 Kenyon Rev. Winter 35 Leonid Dobychin (1854–1936?) fell victim to Stalin's campaign against ‘formalism’ in the arts. After publishing two slim volumes and stories and one small, brilliant novel, The Town of N, Dobychin was somehow elected first whipping boy—‘chief formalist’—among Leningrad artists. At a general meeting of the Writers' Union he was proclaimed a ‘class enemy’ and his writing cruelly censured. class feeling n. ΚΠ 1839 J. S. Mill in A. Bain James Mill (1882) ii. 53 The convictions of the mass of mankind run hand in hand with their interests or with their class feelings. 1961 A. O. J. Cockshut Imagination of Charles Dickens viii. 119 The contempt for Uriah is partly a class-feeling. 2007 National Post (Canada) (Nexis) 24 Nov. a24 The most even-handed historians note that it was class feeling and political ideology, above all, which influenced his [sc. Lord Durham's] sentiments. class hatred n. ΚΠ 1842 Morning Chron. 31 Aug. Not turning it to purposes unworthy of man by fostering class hatred. 1851 T. G. Massey in Friend of People 26 Apr. 177/3 I shall be accused of sowing class-hatred. 1908 Daily Chron. 29 June 4/4 From top to bottom of the social or economic scale of class-consciousness or class-hatreds. 1937 J. M. Murry Necessity of Pacifism i. 10 Marx is vulgarly but generally reputed to be a propagator of the duty of class-hatred. 2004 G. Simmel & D. Frisby Philos. Money v. ii. 408 Hence passionate and aggressive class hatred does not emerge where the classes are separated by an unbridgeable gulf, but rather at that moment at which..the levelling of both classes can be discussed. class jealousy n. ΚΠ 1842 North of Eng. Mag. Aug. 396 Besides class interest, class jealousy opposes us, the ‘landocracy’ are jealous of the trading classes, [etc.]. 1920 D. H. Lawrence Lost Girl i. 8 Let class-jealousy be what it may, a woman hates to see another woman left stalely on the shelf. 2004 M. S. Willis Dwight's House & Other Stories i. 38 Beneath bigotry was always economics, class jealousy, injustice. class line n. ΚΠ 1839 Atlas (Boston, Mass.) 7 Nov. The late efforts of the leading partisans of the Administration, to establish class-lines among the citizens, to make a political distinction between what they call the ‘rich and the poor’. 1902 Atlantic Monthly Sept. 351/1 The public applauds a President of the United States who in his hospitality ignores the color line; to ignore the class line were a different matter. 1998 P. Gourevitch We wish to inform You xxi. 330 He had come to favor the formation of political groupings along class lines, in order to produce ‘horizontal polarization’, as opposed to the ‘vertical polarization’ of tribalism or regionalism. class loyalty n. ΚΠ 1875 Pall Mall Gaz. 8 May 10/1 It is admittedly legitimate for a workman to appeal the esprit de corps—the class loyalty of another whom he is attempting to win. 1899 W. James Talks to Teachers 289 Class-loyalty was undoubtedly an ideal with many. 1938 ‘G. Orwell’ Homage to Catalonia iii. 34 In a workers' army discipline..is based on class-loyalty. 2003 J. A. Ferreyra in A. Elena & M. D. López Cinema of Lat. Amer. iii. 35 In a desperate attempt to appeal to class loyalty, she reproaches him, asking ‘What would your father say about this!’ class morality n. ΚΠ 1833 J. S. Mill in Monthly Repository 7 577 That blighting curse of our country,—the selfishness of class morality. 1951 R. Firth Elements Social Organization vi. 211 Class morality is apt not to be a direct reflection of current structural alignments. 2002 J. Bowden tr. H. Küng Tracing Way vi. 205 Its [sc. Christianity's] action was not simply in good Roman style, in accordance with law, custom or class morality. class prejudice n. ΚΠ 1839 Odd Fellow 22 June It describing the lazy operative,..it should not be considered we have any class prejudices about us. 1850 C. Kingsley Alton Locke I. xi. 172 All my class prejudices against ‘game-preserving aristocrats’. 1925 O. Jespersen Mankind, Nation & Individual iv. 81 The difference in language begets a mutual disdain and class-prejudice. 2004 Independent 14 July i. 6/2 The honours system was condemned by the MPs as anachronistic, dominated by secrecy, riddled with class prejudice and biased against ethnic minorities and women. class relations n. ΚΠ 1872 Galaxy June 764 Had our ancestors, Puritan or Cavalier, in settling the land, found their work of colonization done to their bands, and entered on a ready-made country,so to speak, their personal and class relations would naturally have been apt to shape themselves after the traditions they brought with them. 1989 P. Cloke Rural Land-use Planning in Developed Nations i. 8 Such a view ignores other more powerful and realistic concepts of decision-making power: elitism/instrumentalism..managerialism..and structuralism which promotes the viewpoint that class relations represent the only real disaggregation of society which can inform the analysis of power and policy-making. class rule n. ΚΠ 1841 Northern Star 26 June 3/5 Shall we ever have enough of class-rule under Whig management. 1864 tr. K. Marx in Founding of First Internat. (1935) 39 The struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule. 1959 Universities & Left Rev. Spring 1/1 A socialist commitment, a conscious rejection of all that springs from class rule. 2001 E. Bolsinger Autonomy of Polit. ii. iv. 69 It has been said that Lenin determines the function of the state as being an instrument of class conflict and class rule. class solidarity n. ΚΠ 1898 G. Wallas Life Francis Place 879 The conception which fired the northern factory hands and pitmen, or the Welsh iron- miners in 1838 and 1839, and again m 1848, was that of a class solidarity depending primarily upon an identity of material interest. 1907 Q. Jrnl. Econ. 21 307 Class solidarity will arise on the basis of this class interest. 2000 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 10 Aug. 48/4 Sombart knew that..the United States was an immigrant society; that it was criss-crossed by religious and linguistic particularisms; that racial antagonisms cut across class solidarity. class spirit n. ΚΠ 1837 Brighton Patriot 24 Jan. The principles of these Halls of Science are national, not of the individual or ‘class’ spirit. 1840 J. S. Mill in Edinb. Rev. Oct. 39 That absence of classes and class-spirit. 1886 B. Webb Let. in My Apprenticeship (1926) iii. 166 Class spirit hardly exists because there is no capitalist class. 1911 Times 24 Jan. 5/7 From end to end of Australia, in almost every form of social relationship, class spirit constantly overpowers public spirit. 2000 H. R. Winton & D. R. Mets Challenge of Change 121 The new Captain Tushins..received political indoctrination in keeping with Marxist ideology and the class spirit of the Red Army. class superiority n. ΚΠ 1841 Northern Star 10 Apr. 7/3 The keeping up of class superiority, no matter what. 1859 J. S. Mill On Liberty i. 16 Wherever there is an ascendant class, a large portion of the morality of the country emanates from its class interests, and its feelings of class superiority. 1948 F. R. Leavis Great Trad. v. 246 His languid assurance of class-superiority. 2006 T. F. Jackson From Civil Rights to Human Rights i. 28 Auburn Avenue gave King, Jr. a ‘deeply religious’ identity, and both parents actively discouraged feelings of class superiority in their children. class sympathy n. ΚΠ 1832 Examiner 1 July 424/1 We fear, that the sympathy expressed for the cause of the Poles by the members of our Government is a class sympathy. 1875 W. Stubbs Constit. Hist. III. xix. 326 If their class-sympathies were with the clergy. 1938 Times 5 Aug. 13/7 Relief work falls into two categories, according to whether it is prompted by class sympathy, or undertaken on purely humanitarian grounds untinged by politics. 2002 M. Saeed-Vafa in R. Tapper New Iranian Cinema x. 213 By excluding the affluent parts of Tehran and the city's modern architecture, many films make a social or political comment about the filmmaker's class or class sympathies. class traitor n. ΚΠ 1929 Scribner's Mag. Apr. 463/2 A certain woman organizer regularly hurled the name of ‘class traitors!’ at the young women who were responsible for unionizing their fellow workers. 1966 Maclean's 20 Aug. 43 Morgan has no cures for society so he opts out, even if his Mum does call him a class traitor. 1997 I. Sinclair Lights out for Territory (1998) 91 They're class traitors, flaunting behaviour you'd expect from a lowlifer, a boho, an unreconstructed writer. (b) In sense A. 12b. See also class leader n. at Compounds 1c, class book n. 1b. class meeting n. ΚΠ 1786 A. Orchard (title) Hymns peculiarly adapted for the prayer and class meetings, among the people called Methodists. 1815 V. Ward Statement of Facts (ed. 2) 49 In Class Meetings, the time is employed in conversation on the subject of experimental and practical Religion. 1884 American 8 71 Chapel and class-meeting pulled one way, and church the other. 1938 H. Spring My Son, my Son ii. xi.136 Dinner was a silent meal, and when it was done she set off for her weekly class meeting at the Wesleyan chapel along the road. 2005 M. F. Whiteley Canad. Methodist Women 1766–1925 v. xi. 220 Although the class meeting had as its chief purpose the spiritual oversight of its members, it also had practical functions. (c) In sense A. 6, as class examination, class paper, etc. Now rare. ΚΠ 1860 M. Burrows Pass & Class 15 The Pass papers occupy one day, the Class papers from four to five. 1868 M. Pattison Suggestions Acad. Organisation 298 Dr. Pusey, living on the spot, can discriminate between the ‘Pass’ and the ‘Class’ curriculum. 1931 R. Campbell Georgiad i. 18 All who have learned this grim felicity And swotted bliss up, like the Rule of Three, As if life were a class-examination And there were penance in cohabitation. 1978 Panjab Past & Present 12 290 His successor might have still been thinking of the litteræ humaniores and the class papers of Oxford. b. (a) Adverbial (in sense A. 4a(b)). class-based adj. ΚΠ 1939 W. S. Churchill Step by Step 1936–9 149 The building up of a class-based Socialist–Labour party in Great Britain involved a great setback for Left-wing politics. 2001 S. Walton Out of It (2002) iv. 109 Cocaine's comeback in the 1970s..was very much a class-based affair. Its aura of elite unaffordability made it the drug of choice among semi-retired West Coast rock musicians and their associates. class-biased adj. ΚΠ 1909 Westm. Gaz. 9 Sept. 2/3 A citizen Army, free from military law in times of peace, is the best alternative to the class-biased policy of the present Government. 1950 D. Riesman in Psychiatry 13 302/2 Certain elements in Freud's view of life were narrow, class-biased, and reactionary. 2004 ‘B. Hooks’ We Real Cool iii. 34 Most boys from poor and underprivileged classes are socialized via mass media and class-biased education to believe that all is required for their survival is the ability to do physical labor. class-bound adj. ΚΠ 1898 Atlantic Monthly Mar. 303/1 Except in one direction it [sc. the English political system] was not class-bound in its views, but was moved, for the most part, by a spirit really national and broad. 1960 New Left Rev. Nov. 28/1 The new ‘working-class consciousness’..is likely to be..less class-bound. 2005 Times Lit. Suppl. 29 Apr. 20/2 People in Scott's ambitious book are types familiar from works by other writers who dealt with the British colonial past—..they speak in the class-bound clichés of the time and drink gin on the verandah at sundown. class-ridden adj. ΚΠ 1842 Northern Star 17 Sept. 1/5 We conceive it to be our duty to address you at this critical juncture in the affairs of this class-ridden country. 1934 D. Thomas Let. 20 July in Sel. Lett. (1966) 138 All society ceases to be class-ridden when treated purely as a primary body of consumers. 1941 ‘G. Orwell’ Lion & Unicorn i. i. 33 England is the most class-ridden country under the sun. 2005 Writer's Mag. Sept. 24/3 Once again, he may have been looking for a proletarian antidote to his class-ridden origins. class-structured adj. ΚΠ 1935 Ann. Amer. Acad. Polit. & Social Sci. 182 8/1 The question or whether or no American society is a class-structured society is a social problem worthy of investigation. 2001 D. Howard Coloring the Nation iii. 72 The Dominican Republic isa class-structured society, where race often subverts class interests. (b) Objective (in sense A. 9). class attender n. ΚΠ 1888 Aberdeen Weekly Jrnl. 17 Sept. 4/3 Sunday scholars and Bible class attenders of any age will be eligible for admission to the Church Brigades.] 1897 B'ham Inst. Mag. Nov. 214 Pity her sadness, ye happy lecture-goers and class-attenders. 2003 S. Wickham Midwifery 58/2 Another author noted that her subjects considered classes least useful as a source of parentcraft instruction, a conclusion with which another researcher concurred when reporting that class attenders felt that they had been inadequately prepared for ‘coping with the new baby’. class-holder n. ΚΠ 1889 B. Bosanquet Ess. & Addr. 81 All the appliances for work being there, and competent teachers on the spot, class-holders who come up to town for a day or two can go there and get special difficulties solved. 1892 E. Rowe Hints on Chip-carving 54 My experiences as a class-holder in one of the evening classes of a London Board School. 1910 Times 26 May 6/4 In addition 88 class-holders are exhibiting at the Albert Hall. class teacher n. ΚΠ 1818 Academician 18 June 100/2 Each class teacher as well as those in his class are constantly kept at their lessons. 1905 Daily Chron. 11 July 3/2 The unfairness to the rate-payer,..to the class-teacher, to the non-collegiate. 1999 Times Educ. Suppl. 7 May 79/3 We are looking for an experienced full-time class teacher with creativity and enthusiasm to work in our recently established Primary Language Unit. class teaching n. ΚΠ 1837 Analyst 7 96 The instruction of adults may be forwarded by cheap works, class teaching, and public lectures. 1959 Chambers's Encycl. IV. 353/2 In a number of English schools, where a modified Dalton plan is still used, one finds a mixture of class-teaching and of individual assignments. 1997 Educ. Rev. Winter 54/2 We need liberating from the straightjacket of the notion of class teaching, to enable us to teach in larger or smaller groups as the nature of the subject. c. class action n. Law (originally and chiefly North American) a single legal action brought on behalf of all the members of a group with a common interest or grievance; frequently attributive. ΘΚΠ society > law > administration of justice > court proceedings or procedure > action of courts in claims or grievances > [noun] > a lawsuit > other types of action mort d'ancestora1325 trespass on the case1429 action of detinue1467 mortancestry1471 replevin1515 non-finding1525 nisi prius1533 faint action1542 interpleadera1558 improbationc1575 assize1577 assumpsit1586 transitory action1594 trover1594 suit of the King's peace1607 detinuea1626 quia timet1628 choke-baila1637 reprobator1672 spulyie1678 petitory action1681 proprium1695 restitution of conjugal rights1720 amicable suit1768 noxal action1774 real action1818 witness action1892 class suit1894 non-jury1897 foreclosure action1905 class action1910 derivative action1934 paternity suit1945 1910 Northeastern Reporter 90 175 The plaintiff cannot maintain this action as a class action on behalf of himself and all other similarly situated creditors of the defendant. 1973 Black Panther 3 Mar. 6/1 The class-action law-suit filed in U.S. District Court asks that the Department of Health..be required to issue regulations forbidding States from defining eligibility rules more narrowly than federal law permits. 2001 D. Kessler Question of Intent xxx. 228 Countless liability suits continued to be filed, including..a class-action lawsuit on behalf of..ailing smokers in Florida. No class-action case had ever come to trial before. class analysis n. analysis of politics, society, etc., using social class as the central means of understanding and explanation, esp. with reference to Marxist or Weberian theory; an instance of this. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > study of society > [noun] > theories or methods of analysis reflexivity1662 social statics1843 social causation1848 sociography1881 functionalism1904 class analysis1919 culturalism1919 mass observation1920 survey1927 participant observation1933 participant observing1933 Verstehen1934 panel technique1938 MO1939 ahistoricism1940 historicism1940 technologism1940 action research1945 metasociology1950 pattern variable1951 structural functionalism1951 structuralism1951 panel analysis1955 cliometrics1960 unilinearism1964 technology assessment1966 symbolic interactionism1969 modernization theory1972 processualism1972 postcolonialism1974 decontextualization1976 decontextualizing1980 structurism1989 1919 M. I. Rostovtsev tr. A. Lunacharsky in Proletarian Culture 8 The only correct analysis of art is a ‘class analysis’. 1962 China Q. 10 43 This stress on the identity between the industrial and the rural proletariat..is to be found in the class analysis of both Mao and Aidit. 2005 Independent 1 Oct. 36 Baathism in all its forms was avowedly anti-Marxist and eschewed all class analysis and politics. class cleavage n. (a) political division between different social classes; an instance of this; (b) Linguistics the occurrence of a word in more than one grammatical class; the use of a word to fulfil a new or different grammatical function (rare). ΘΚΠ the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > a part of speech > [noun] > occurrence in more than one part of speech class cleavage1933 1893 Times 16 Jan. 7/3 You would have a central council composed one-third of owners, one-third of occupiers, one-third of labourers, and yet you would not have any class cleavage between them. 1933 L. Bloomfield Lang. xii. 204 The word one occurs not only as an indefinite determiner (one man), but also in some entirely different functions (as in a big one, if one only knew); this phenomenon may be designated as class-cleavage. 1937 J. M. Murry Necessity of Pacifism vi. 98 Advanced Capitalism operates far more strongly towards national cohesion than towards class-cleavage. 1954 D. M. Potter People of Plenty i. 44 The answer to this question..might depend upon the depth of class cleavages within the society. 1986 W. Safire in N.Y. Times 1 June 12/2 Modern advertising is entranced with two techniques: attributive nominating and class cleavage. 2005 M. Smith Civil Society? 22 Society is not divided by class cleavages alone, but is also characterized by cleavages based on other definitions of the interests of the individual. class clown n. a student who is prone to making jokes, playing pranks, etc., rather than concentrating on schoolwork; also in extended use. ΚΠ 1914 La Crosse (Wisconsin) Tribune 7 Sept. 2 He did not see a certain movement on the part of Jery O'Neil, class clown. 1994 Amer. Spectator Oct. 64/2 [He] is less the bad boy of Russian politics than its class clown: an embarrassment, a durak, a fool. 2002 N.Y. Mag. 9 Dec. 46/2 I ended up being voted class clown in every class—and class clowns, I've determined over time, are just kids who need a lot of attention. class concept n. Logic = class notion n. ΚΠ 1866 T. C. Simon Hamilton versus Mill I. iii. 92 We have, therefore, image-concepts as well as genus-concepts or class-concepts, the former being of individuals only, the latter of classes or genera. 1903 B. Russell Princ. Math. ii. 19 The class must be distinguished from the class-concept or predicate by which it is to be defined: thus men are a class, while man is a class-concept. 2004 Philos. East & West 54 533 Cross-cultural comparison calls for the formulation of class concepts or categories. class-conscious adj. [probably after German klassenbewußt (1888; now klassenbewusst ); compare slightly earlier class-consciousness n.] aware of belonging to a particular social class or of the differences between social classes. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > social mobility > class-conscious class-conscious1899 1899 W. M. Burke Hist. & Functions Central Labor Unions 111 The following letter..sets forth clearly the real difference between a ‘pure and simple’ trade unionist and a ‘class-conscious’ socialist. 1903 J. London People of Abyss viii. 84 I was a superior, and they were superbly class-conscious. 1907 Fabian News 19 94/1 The middle classes are more class-conscious than the workers. 2005 T. Hall Salaam Brick Lane x. 217 ‘It's not dangerous,’ I continued. ‘It's just that the British are class conscious, and sometimes people from different classes can be stand-offish with one another.’ class-consciousness n. [after German Klassenbewußtsein (1865 in F. Engels; now Klassenbewusstsein)] awareness of one's place in a system of social class, esp. (in Marxist terms) as it relates to the class struggle. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > social mobility > class-conscious > state of being class-consciousness1887 1887 S. Moore & E. Aveling tr. K. Marx Capital I. p. xxiv The German proletariat had attained a much more clear class-consciousness [Ger. Klassenbewußtsein] than the German bourgeoisie. 1922 Westm. Gaz. 18 Dec. The belief that what was called class consciousness was necessary to social progress. 1978 P. Thompson Voice of Past iii. 70 This study of a Durham mining valley shows the role which Primitive Methodism..played in inhibiting the growth of militant class-consciousness among the miners. 2002 S. Brett Torso in Town (2003) i. 1 She could still recognize that Fedborough was riddled with class-consciousness. class cup n. U.S. (now rare) (a) (esp. at Yale College) a silver cup presented by each class (sense A. 10) to the first child born to one of its members after graduation (said to have been first awarded at Yale by the Class of 1844); (b) a cup awarded for winning a sporting competition, esp. among members of a class (sense A. 10). ΚΠ 1854 in Dict. Amer. Eng. (1960) I. (at cited word) Each man's mind was made up To obtain the ‘Class Cup’. 1871 L. H. Bagg Four Years at Yale ii. v. 540 It may be remarked that none of the ‘Class Cup Boys’ have as yet graduated from the college. 1881 Columbia Spectator (Columbia Univ, N.Y.) 11 May 18/1 The spring regatta will probably take place on May 14th, when the oarsmen will have a chance to leave their names on the class cup. 1899 Rec. Class 1878 College Univ. Penn. 122 William Henry, born February, 1883, possessor of the class cup. 1913 Biogr. Sketches Class 1868 Dartmouth Coll. 115 A son, Arthur Richardson, was born May 12, 1870, for whom he claimed the Class Cup; this cup was intended for the first baby born to the class. 1931 Penn. Gaz. (Univ. Penn.) 1 June 451/2 Preceding the dinner there will be the annual golf match for the class cup, a hotly contested feature. class day n. U.S. a day on which the senior class in a college celebrates the completion of their course, typically with formal festivities, prize-giving, etc. ΘΚΠ society > education > educational administration > university administration > [noun] > special day or week Le day1574 commencement day1606 Show Sunday1825 class day1833 presentation day1843 June Week1889 spirit week1923 1833 F. A. Whitney Diary 16 July in Harvard Bk. (1875) II. 165 Our Class Day, glorious summer weather. 1843 in 17th Ann. Rep. President Harvard Univ. to Overseers 10 Music on Seniors' ‘Class Day’. 1886 J. Quincy in Holmes Life Emerson 45 Emerson accepted the duty of delivering the Poem on Class Day. 1910 C. C. Eliot Let. 3 Apr. in T. S. Eliot Lett. (1988) I. 13 You must be sure and secure tickets when the time comes for Father and me to hear your Ode. Is it on Class Day, at Sanders? 2006 University Wire (Nexis) 18 Apr. The Class Day ceremony includes the presentation of the class gift, the class history and several academic, athletic and service prizes. class fee n. the fee charged by a teacher for a class; (chiefly Scottish) one payable to a professor by all those attending a university class (now historical). ΚΠ 1808 New Ann. Reg. 1807 Lit. Select. & Retrospect 265/2 The barons of the exchequer..should generously interfere, and request the professors..to have some mercy on themselves, and appropriate out of this [fund], one hundred and fifty pounds annually each to their own use, which, with the class fees,..would form a very comfortable and genteel livelihood. 1873 Edinb. Univ. Cal. 1873–4 336 Annual Salaries (exclusive of Class Fees) attached to the Office of Principal [etc.]. 1950 L. J. Saunders Sc. Democracy 1815–40 v. iii. 336 If necessary, the extra-mural student could always attend a university class on payment of the class fee. 2005 K. Z. Jones 200 Best Home Businesses (ed. 2) 73 The costs of your raw materials will need to be factored into your class fees. class-fellow n. a student in the same class as another at school, college, or university. ΘΚΠ society > education > learning > learner > [noun] > those taught by same master > fellow pupil or disciple condisciple1554 book mate1598 class-fellow1712 classmate1713 deskmate1850 society > education > learning > learner > college or university student > [noun] > fellow-student fellow collegiate1616 fellow collegian1630 class-fellow1712 classmate1713 1712 J. Swift Jrnl. to Stella 1 Mar. (2013) 399 Y have heard me often talk of Stratford; we were Classfellows at School & University. 1830 A. Heber Life R. Heber I. i. 8 In this respect his class-fellows had sometimes the credit of surpassing him. 1964 B. Friel Philadelphia, Here I Come! 43 His father and I were classfellows at school. 2005 S. Chandan Volcano 28 In our school days, we'd shared the same bench and talked about all sorts of things, from teachers, class-fellows and girls, and exchanged lewd jokes too. class firing n. originally Military trial shooting used to assign rifle shooters (originally military riflemen) to a class according to level of skill. ΚΠ 1861 Bristol Mercury 16 Mar. 2/6 The class firing..would soon commence, and he hoped the gentlemen of the corps would take every possible mean..of availing themselves of private practice at the butts. 1888 Vct. Melgund in 19th Cent. Apr. 563 With Mounted Riflemen, class-firing alone gives a good deal of work. 1996 Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) (Nexis) 21 Apr. c12 The DEC has around 5,000 volunteer instructors who certify an average of 50,000 new hunters per year. Each student gets workbooks and a supply ammunition for class firing as well as small-calibre firearms. class inclusion n. Logic the relation that holds between two classes when every member of the first is a member of the second; (also more generally) inclusion in a class. ΚΠ 1878 C. Read On Theory of Logic 53 The inclusion of one Class by another is represented by A, and Class-inclusion depends on Likeness. 1920 Mind 29 337 The relations which occur in the premises and conclusion of a syllogism are logical relations, e.g. that of class-inclusion. 1978 Child Devel. 49 688 A typical class inclusion task involves the presentation of two numerically unequal subclasses (e.g., five dogs and two cats) which both belong to one superordinate class (animals). 2004 G. Moffatt Parenting Journey vii. 159 It is an understanding of class inclusion that helps a child understand seeming contradictions. class interval n. Statistics each of the intervals into which the frequency distribution of a set of results is divided, often represented by a division of a histogram or bar chart; a range of values that falls into a single such division. ΚΠ 1906 Jrnl. Royal Statist. Soc. 69 578 There are many more districts near the upper limit of the class interval than the lower. 1980 C. S. French Computer Sci. xliii. 335 The class interval shown as 25–29 will include values between 24.5 and 29.5 because measurement is to the nearest second. 1996 New Scientist 23 Mar. 46/2 What..the former Soviet republics use as class intervals for sand, silt and clay differ from the western Wentworth scale—some Russian clay is British silt. class leader n. a member of a Methodist society who takes charge of a class (sense A. 12b). ΚΠ 1770 J. Wesley Let. 27 Jan. (1931) V. 179 Give Mr. Shirley a hint not to contradict me when he preaches in my house... Who are your new class-leaders? 1857 C. Kingsley Two Years Ago I. iv. 128 A tidy, God-fearing person..One of these Methodist class-leaders. 1930 W. J. Warner Wesleyan Movement in Industr. Revol. viii. viii. 262 In the biographies of successful Methodists their service as class leader is a usual item. 2000 K. B. Westerfield Amer. Methodist Worship ix. 227 Family prayer was serious business: one class leader in Ohio ‘allowed no family to live without prayer’. class-leading adj. that is the best in a given class. ΚΠ 1954 Florence (S. Carolina) Morning News 17 Dec. 6 a/3 (caption) The class-leading Hartsville S.C. girls. 1984 Washington Post 16 Feb. (Maryland Weekly section) 11/4 Richardson won the 50-yard dash (5.3) and 300-yard run (33.5) in class-leading times. 2003 What Home Cinema Jan. 123/1 Already employed by Pioneer in its class-leading car audio products, the OEL display affords the use of distinctive type fonts and motion graphics. class list n. (a) a list of the members of a class in a school, college, or university; (b) a list of the candidates who have passed an examination, showing the class (sense A. 6) in which each is placed. ΘΚΠ society > education > educational administration > examination > [noun] > honours list class list1807 honours list1849 honour board1879 1807 J. Lancaster Improvem. in Educ. (new ed.) 94 He then makes a list of absentees, by referring to names in the class-list. 1834 W. Sewell Attack upon Univ. of Oxf. (ed. 2) 42 Our ambition in Oxford is to be mentioned in the Class List. 1877 R. H. Roberts Harry Holbrooke of Holbrooke Hall i. 18 It was seen at the head of the class-list in the school quadrangle when the class-lists were posted. 1925 Times 15 July 19/3 The examiners in the Final Honour School of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics..issued the following class list. 1991 M. Dorris & L. Erdrich Crown of Columbus iv. 59 When my preliminary class lists arrive in intercampus mail, I match the students' names with their faces in each freshman book, curious as a blind date. 2006 C. Chartres Why I am Still Anglican 70 There was a horrible moment at the end of my course when the class list was pinned up and I discovered to my deepest horror that I'd got a Third. † class-man n. Obsolete a university student, esp. at Oxford or Cambridge, who has obtained an honours degree after examination; see sense A. 6. ΚΠ 1822 Etonian No. 10. 380 Breakfast at Sterling's room; rather frightened at first, for I found three or four B.A.'s; among whom I recognized two class-men. 1823 T. De Quincey Lett. Young Man in London Mag. Mar. 333 A man was rated as to his income..he who was in the highest was said emphatically to be of the class, ‘classicus’—a class-man, without adding the number. 1860 M. Burrows Pass & Class (1866) 263 (note) Xenophon's..works are not those usually taken up by the Class-man. classmanship n. †(a) the condition of having passed the examination for an honours degree at Oxford or Cambridge (obsolete rare); (b) the position of belonging to a school or college class; the conduct or behaviour considered appropriate to this. ΚΠ 1885 L. Stephen Life H. Fawcett iii. 76 A youth just fresh from his classmanship often impresses his seniors as a little too condescending. 1921 Woodland (Calif.) Daily Democrat 17 June 1/3 These five have their names on the honor roll because of excellence in classmanship during the term just about to close. 2004 Times Colonist (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) (Nexis) 19 Aug. d2 Good classmanship: Remind your child the importance of being considerate of classmates, listening and co-operating with teachers, following school rules, approaching learning with best efforts and open mind. class mark n. a reference mark or number indicating the class or subject of a book in a library and often its position on the library shelves; cf. shelf-mark n. at shelf n.¹ Compounds 2. ΘΚΠ society > communication > book > library or collection of books > library, place, or institution > [noun] > press- or shelf-mark > indicating class or subject of book class mark1824 class number1873 1824 S. Lee in tr. H. Martyn Controv. Tracts Pref. p. xlii It bears the class mark of the Public Library Ll. 6. 28–9. 1855 Ann. Rep. Cambr. Univ. Libr. 1 These Pamphlets..have no Class-marks attached to their Titles in the Catalogue. 1910 Times 2 Dec. 13/2 His scheme for substituting for the various series of class marks in the library one series of Arabic numbers was carried out as far as the alteration of all the marks in the books and in the catalogue. 1995 G. S. Koh in A. R. Thomas Classification 197 Catalogs should use terms in the classification schedules and indexes as well as the class mark notations. class marriage n. Cultural Anthropology the strict system of exogamy practised by Australian Aboriginal people, in which a member of one class may only marry into certain other classes. ΚΠ 1880 E. B. Tylor in Jrnl. Anthropol. Inst. 9 354 The class marriage system of Australia, under which a man of a particular class may only take a wife of a particular class, has long been well known. 1883 Science 2 807/2 Mr. Bonney describes their [sc. aborigines of the River Darling's] parturition customs, systematic infanticide, child-rearing, initiation of youth, class-marriage, courtesy, charms, sucking-cure, diseases, blood-cure, burials and mourning. 2004 D. McKnight Going Whiteman's Way vi. 97 There are many reports of people being severely punished and even killed because they infringed the class marriage Laws. class meaning n. Linguistics the aspect of the meaning of a word or linguistic form shared by all words or forms belonging to the same syntactic category. ΘΚΠ the mind > language > linguistics > semantics > meaning or signification > [noun] > of forms belonging to same form class class meaning1858 1858 J. T. White Lat. Suffixes Pref. p. ix The Suffix supplies the class-meaning. 1926 L. Bloomfield in Language 2 159 The functional meanings in which the forms of a form-class appear constitute the class-meaning. 1958 C. F. Hockett Course in Mod. Linguistics xxx. 256 This class-meaning, ‘single female human or animal’, is not an invariable part of the meaning of she. 2007 P. H. Matthews Syntactic Relations iv. 62 These, then, were all determiners; the class-meaning assigned to them was, ‘roughly, “identificational character of specimens”’. class movement n. a political or cultural movement consisting solely or chiefly of members of a particular social class. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social relations > association for a common purpose > [noun] > group associated for common purpose covinc1330 lyancec1380 university?1473 army1540 band1557 union1603 coalescence1609 confederation1621 associationa1658 confederacy1681 federation1791 brigade1806 united front1807 class movement1839 company1839 paction1877 combine1889 protest movement1898 protest group1920 minority movement1923 we1926 power1966 1839 Morning Chron. 8 Nov. 2/5 What shame and guilt must ever follow the faction that..left the masses in such a state of deplorable ignorance as not to perceive the difference between a class movement and a national movement? 1918 Econ. Jrnl. 28 427 The question whether the co-operative movement is a class movement..is not only of theoretical importance, but has also a practical value. 2007 J. Gerteis Class & Color Line 5 Their broad range of members—from farm hands and day laborers to planters and proprietors—has led some later observers to wonder whether these were really class movements at all. class name n. the name of a logical class, a general name; (Grammar) = class noun n. ΘΚΠ the mind > language > naming > name or appellation > [noun] > other specific names or types of name the Holy Namec1440 Singh1623 specification1633 indigitamenta1657 explicative1669 ethnic1791 household name1804 class term1811 book name1815 biverb1831 class word1837 family name1840 class name1843 ananym1867 papponymic1875 autonym1879 throne name1880 demonymic1893 ethnonym1894 a name to conjure with1901 praise name1904 self-reference1948 exonym1957 specific1962 endonym1970 demonym1990 the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > a part of speech > noun > [noun] > other specific types of noun increaser1612 regulara1637 energizer1751 agent noun1782 nomen actionis1820 segolate1831 class noun1849 patrial1854 nomen agentis1859 metaplast1864 agent word1879 post-genitive1922 conversion-noun1928 noun adjective1930 head noun1933 relatum1933 actant1967 class name1994 1843 J. S. Mill Syst. Logic I. i. v. 138 When the class-name is predicated of any object of this description. 1870 F. C. Bowen Logic xi. 353 The..essential qualities of the objects denoted by the class-name. 1994 T. C. Potts Structures & Categories for Representation Meaning iii. 108 This works providing that every class name (count noun) is qualified by a restrictive relative clause. 2004 M. Potter Set Theory & its Philos. 302 If we do this, we can no longer treat {} as contextually defined, since we shall want to use it alongside class names, where its meaning cannot be unpacked contextually. class notion n. Logic a concept, regarded as defining a class of individuals. ΚΠ 1851 N. Brit. Rev. 15 117 In this passage we do not think sufficient distinction is made..between attributes which are employed in the definition of a class notion and attributes which may be used in a description of the individuals which the class contains. 1864 F. C. Bowen Logic iii. 51 I can think any object only by placing it under a Concept, or Class-notion expressed by a General Term. 1946 M. H. Carré Realists & Nominalists iv. 123 The universal in thought was perceived to include not only class notions, but to embrace other forms of essential connexions. 2005 N. Ronkin Early Buddhist Metaphysics iv. iii. 158 The two terms,..do not yet denote a universal in the sense of an abstract entity or a class-notion that makes up various particulars members of a single class, but rather the visible form by which the members of a class are recognized. class noun n. Grammar a noun that denotes a class of objects; esp. one denoting any individual member of a class; a count noun (frequently opposed to material noun). ΘΚΠ the mind > language > linguistics > study of grammar > a part of speech > noun > [noun] > other specific types of noun increaser1612 regulara1637 energizer1751 agent noun1782 nomen actionis1820 segolate1831 class noun1849 patrial1854 nomen agentis1859 metaplast1864 agent word1879 post-genitive1922 conversion-noun1928 noun adjective1930 head noun1933 relatum1933 actant1967 class name1994 1849 J. Brown Eng. Gram. II. 136 Girard was the Cræsus of Philadelphia. Cræsus here is made to constitute a class. Hence his name is a class noun. 1892 H. Sweet New Eng. Gram. I. 54 Common nouns..are subdivided into class-nouns, such as man, and material-nouns, such as iron. 1939 H. E. Palmer Gram. Spoken Eng. (ed. 2) i. 30 Every word in the dictionary is potentially a class-noun, for we can speak of ifs and buts. 1985 R. Hickey in J. Fisiak Hist. Semantics & Hist. Word-formation 217 The input for agency derivation may come from the lexical class noun or verb. 1995 J. W. M. Verhaar Toward Ref. Gram. Tok Pisin xx. 340 Such plurals take on class noun characteristics: waters is then, rather like ‘waves’, or ‘stretches of water’. class number n. = class mark n. ΘΚΠ society > communication > book > library or collection of books > library, place, or institution > [noun] > press- or shelf-mark > indicating class or subject of book class mark1824 class number1873 1873 M. Dewey in G. Dawe Melvil Dewey (1932) 320 Sub-classify each, or any, of these eighty-one (hundred) classes... A Dictionary of Science would receive no sub-classification but remain simply with main class number. 1996 M. Cornog & T. Perper For Sex Educ., see Librarian vii. 119 Each class number should be compared with those of similar books. † class-office n. Obsolete the office responsible for the administration of a classis lottery. ΚΠ 1714 London Gaz. No. 5228/4 Whoever brings them to Mr. Ravand at the Class-Office Anno 1712, at the Exchequer, shall have 40s. reward. class pride n. (a) pride in one's social class; (b) (chiefly U.S.) pride in or support for one's school, college, or university class. ΚΠ 1838 Northern Liberator 17 Nov. 2/1 Examine your own hearts, divest yourselves of prejudice and class pride. 1839 Yale Lit. Mag. Apr. 320 The experience of another year has..established the Magazine upon the same basis upon which rest the transmitted usages and institutions of college—upon a class pride, emulous of former attainments. 1999 Chicago Daily Herald (Nexis) 16 Sept. 3 Each class was given an opportunity to show its class pride by dressing in a given colour. 2004 D. Russell Looking North 115 There are also many examples of dialect and accent serving as a source of genuine local, regional and, for some, class pride. class religion n. a religion predominantly followed by or appealing especially to a particular social class. ΚΠ 1853 J. H. Newman Disc. addressed to mixed Congregations xii. 188 In this country, especially, there is nothing broader than class religions; the established form itself is but the religion of a class. 2001 W. Stark Sociol. of Relig. iii. ii. 258 By catering predominantly, if not exclusively, to them [sc. intelllectuals], Arianism would have made Christianity a class religion. class reunion n. a social gathering of former classmates from school, college, or university, often organized to mark a certain number of years since graduation. ΚΠ 1850 B. Silliman in Statistics of Class of 1837 (Yale Coll.) 3 Our own Class reunion, will, it is hoped, secure a very general attendance of members. 1935 R. W. Brown Hillikin xiv. 141 When you come back to your class reunions,..be sure to bring reports of what you have done to banish ugliness and make the world a livable place. 2000 S. Afr. Times UK 12 July 12/2 The 1950 matriculants of Glenwood High School are holding an informal Class Reunion on August 10. class society n. a society divided or organized into social classes. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social class > [noun] > distinction of class > society based on class society1860 1860 H. Whitehead et al. Lectures xii. 192 A class society, when at its best, ought not to be a witness or a protest against the outer world, but a witness and protest in its favour. 1930 L. L. Lorwin in E. R. A. Seligman & A. S. Johnson Encycl. Soc. Sci. III. 540/2 In any class society the process of production is simultaneously a process of economic exploitation. 2006 N.Y. Times Mag. 17 Dec. 10/4 Schooling by itself cannot destratify a class society; class structure keeps reproducing itself. class struggle n. a conflict or contention between different social classes; esp. (in Marxist ideology) the conflict of interests between the workers and the ruling class in a capitalist society; also as a mass noun. [In the specific Marxist use, after German Klassenkampf (1848 in K. Marx & F. Engels Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, the source translated in quot. 1850), perhaps itself after French lutte des classes (1828).] ΚΠ 1839 Morning Chron. 19 Mar. The lowering of this great national question [sc. the Corn Laws] into a class struggle. 1850 H. Macfarlane tr. K. Marx & F. Engels Manifesto of German Communist Party in Red Republican 16 Nov. 171/2 As the settlement of the class struggle draws near, the process of dissolution goes on..within the ruling-class. 1939 ‘G. Orwell’ Crit. Ess. (1951) 11 From the ‘revolutionary’ point of view the class-struggle is the main source of progress. 2000 F. Keane Stranger's Eye 55 I feared a tirade against the injustice of the world, topped off with a ringing appeal for class struggle. class subject n. (a) a subject taught in a classroom; (b) one set for examination in honours. ΘΚΠ society > education > learning > study > subject or object of study > [noun] > class-subject class subject1838 school subject1846 1838 Mechanic's Mag. 29 282/1 The case is otherwise when we are told that a learned lecturer on natural philosophy, who ought, ex officio, to be deeply read in his vocation, has adopted the invention as a class-subject. 1882 Buxton in 19th Cent. Nov. 792 The class subjects include English grammar, history, etc. 1930 B. S. Burks et al. Promise of Youth ii. xiv. 249 In studying spelling as a class subject she did excellent work. 1995 J. McDermid in J. Purvis Women's Hist. v. 108 After 1893 domestic economy became a class subject. 2000 R. Peel et al. Questions of Eng. 68 In 1882 again a further rearrangement of the class subjects allowed for the introduction of English (Literature and Grammar). class suit n. Law (originally and chiefly North American) = class action n.. ΘΚΠ society > law > administration of justice > court proceedings or procedure > action of courts in claims or grievances > [noun] > a lawsuit > other types of action mort d'ancestora1325 trespass on the case1429 action of detinue1467 mortancestry1471 replevin1515 non-finding1525 nisi prius1533 faint action1542 interpleadera1558 improbationc1575 assize1577 assumpsit1586 transitory action1594 trover1594 suit of the King's peace1607 detinuea1626 quia timet1628 choke-baila1637 reprobator1672 spulyie1678 petitory action1681 proprium1695 restitution of conjugal rights1720 amicable suit1768 noxal action1774 real action1818 witness action1892 class suit1894 non-jury1897 foreclosure action1905 class action1910 derivative action1934 paternity suit1945 1894 Toledo Legal News 28 July 347/1 The question to be determined is, whether the Compton suit was a representative or class suit. 1951 A. Reppy Civil Rights in U.S. vi. 145 A Browne [Junior High School] student, and the Browne, Parent-Teacher's Association brought separate class suits against the Board of Education, seeking to invalidate the city's segregated school system. 1983 B. A. K. Rider Insider Trading vi. 313 The expedient of a class suit allows actions to become viable which individually may not be worth pursuing. This could be particularly so in regard to insider trading and associated abuses such as the manipulation of corporate disclosure. 2008 Manila Standard (Nexis) 15 May It is highly probable that some lawyers and even ordinary consumers can get together and file a class suit. class term n. a general name for a set or category of things; cf. class name n. ΘΚΠ the mind > language > naming > name or appellation > [noun] > other specific names or types of name the Holy Namec1440 Singh1623 specification1633 indigitamenta1657 explicative1669 ethnic1791 household name1804 class term1811 book name1815 biverb1831 class word1837 family name1840 class name1843 ananym1867 papponymic1875 autonym1879 throne name1880 demonymic1893 ethnonym1894 a name to conjure with1901 praise name1904 self-reference1948 exonym1957 specific1962 endonym1970 demonym1990 1811 S. T. Coleridge Lect. 1808–19 on Lit. (1987) 21 Nov. I. 202 Virtue..is now become the Class-term of Moral Excellence in all its different species. 1893 Methodist Rev. Sept. 693 In dealing with a plurality of things the mind is forced to use class terms, and thus one word comes to stand for many objects. 1921 Administration May 716/2 There are various types of mental activity under the general class term of intelligence. 2000 L. J. Brinton Struct. Mod. Eng. vi. 135 Musical instrument is a class term including piano, violin,..marimbas, accordion, and so on. class ticket n. chiefly Scottish (now historical) a ticket gaining admission to a professor's class, esp. one signed by the professor as confirmation that the student had completed the course to the professor's satisfaction. ΘΚΠ society > authority > lack of subjection > permission > [noun] > document which permits or authorizes > ticket > other forms of ticket bone1788 class ticket1822 omnibus ticket1839 punch ticket1870 e-ticket1995 1822 A. Bower Edinb. Student's Guide 3 (heading) Class tickets. 1831 Rep. Royal Comm. Universities Scotl. 164 in Parl. Papers (H.C. 310) XII. 111 To connect Certificates with the presentation of Matriculation or Class Tickets as very much (if not entirely) a matter of course. 1889 A. M. Stoddart in T. T. Stoddart Angling Songs 29 His curriculum at the University included at first the usual classes, and the class-tickets which he preserved are many of them endorsed with the Professors' approbation. 1997 B. Brereton Law, Justice, & Empire 7 Entry into a professional course of study, such as law, depended not so much on possession of the M.A. degree as on demonstrating one's abilityto gain it by following the required courses to the professors' satisfaction as attested by class tickets. class war n. = class struggle n. ΚΠ 1845 Amer. Whig Rev. Aug. 114/1 The impulse is rather Jacobinic than in any strict sense Political even. It is the everlasting class war of a portion of those who have not against the mass of those who have. 1892 G. B. Shaw Fabian Soc. (Fabian Tract 41) 5 The Social-Democratic Federation..said..that its policy is founded on a recognition of the existence of a Class War. 1919 J. Buchan Mr. Standfast i. iii. 60 Their blessed class war, which cuts across nationalities. 2005 New Yorker 31 Oct. 87/1 We live in the age after the age of class war, when no idea has taken the place of socialism to carry the human aspiration for equality. class warfare n. conflict and contention between different social classes; cf. class struggle n. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > social attitudes > [noun] > discrimination or inegalitarianism > by class or social rank class warfare1840 classism1842 casteism1852 1840 Northern Star 25 Jan. 5/1 Good must come to the nation out of this class warfare for pre-eminence. 1846 Douglas Jerrold's Shilling Mag. 3 418 We have had too much class warfare lately. 1927 A. Huxley Proper Stud. 86 Those who would interpret all social phenomena in terms of class warfare. 2003 BusinessWeek 20 Jan. 32/3 The Democrats' class-warfare pitch fails because most of us see ourselves as middle class. class warrior n. a person who engages in class war; spec. a person who campaigns against and is motivated by perceived injustices deriving from the class system. ΚΠ 1908 G. R. S. Taylor Leaders of Socialism xii. 109 Marxians, Reformists, General Strikers, Class-warriors, and Class-unconscious folk are slowly closing the ranks for united parliamentary action against the men who are out to defend capitalism. 2004 Week 25 Sept. 35/2 Too much ground has been given to the class warriors and inverted snobs within the party who love a bit of toff-bashing even if it means riding roughshod over civil liberties. class word n. = class name n.; cf. class term n. ΘΚΠ the mind > language > naming > name or appellation > [noun] > other specific names or types of name the Holy Namec1440 Singh1623 specification1633 indigitamenta1657 explicative1669 ethnic1791 household name1804 class term1811 book name1815 biverb1831 class word1837 family name1840 class name1843 ananym1867 papponymic1875 autonym1879 throne name1880 demonymic1893 ethnonym1894 a name to conjure with1901 praise name1904 self-reference1948 exonym1957 specific1962 endonym1970 demonym1990 1837 Western Academician 1 341 That common conception, therefore, supplies the class-word, which renders the truth common. 1852 E. M. Goulburn Elem. Treat. Philos. Gram. i. 9 There is no object in existence corresponding to the class-word Mountain, Tree, &c. 1922 K. O. Thompson Techn. Expos. ii. 22 To say that a piano is an instrument is too chose to inclusive a class word. 2003 J. Bean XML for Data Architects iii. 65 Long-time data architects are often familiar with this challenge to naming and more specifically to class words. classwork n. Education work done in the classroom, rather than at home or elsewhere; cf. homework n. 2. ΘΚΠ society > education > learning > study > subject or object of study > [noun] > exercises or homework lesson?c1225 renderc1380 vulgars1520 practicec1541 theme1545 example1562 tax1564 repetition1579 exercise1612 praxis1612 recreation1633 pensum1667 vacation-exercisea1668 version1711 task1737 thesisa1774 dictation1789 challenging1825 holiday task1827 devoir1849 homework1852 vulgus1857 cram-book1858 rep1858 banco1862 prep1866 classwork1867 preparation1875 work card1878 vacation-task1904 1867 Times 10 June 6/4 The professor and his assistants have not merely..to give lectures, but to superintend classwork in study. 1939 T. L. Green Pract. Animal Biol. i. 2 For class work you will usually be provided with a few drops of the culture medium containing specimens. 2004 Sun Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi) (Nexis) 18 Mar. a4 Most of what we learn is not coming from the homework assigned, but rather the classwork in school. C2. Compounds of the adjective. class act n. colloquial a person or thing displaying impressive and stylish excellence. ΚΠ 1977 C. McFadden Serial xxiii. 142 She had a class act going there. 1987 A. Miller Timebends (1988) iv. 203 Two or three times a year he would find himself rehearsing a script too substandard to broadcast on Cavalcade, radio's class act. 2006 Rugby League World Jan. 26/1 Thirty-years-old next year, the Australian has been a class act for Leeds over the last couple of seasons. Derivatives class-wise adv. according to class; in terms of class. ΚΠ 1871 J. Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue iv. 177 The grammarian..forms rules in which he legislates class-wise for the words so grouped. 1987 C. Hanson in A. López Doña Licha's Island iv. 84 The definition of insanity is political and class-wise a very loaded term. You can be rich and be suffering from exhaustion but, if you're poor, they say you cracked up. 2003 J. Gasteiger & T. Engel Chemoinformatics 212 The information content (IC) of the system is additive, at least class-wise. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online June 2022). classv. Brit. /klɑːs/, /klas/, U.S. /klæs/ Origin: Formed within English, by conversion. Etymon: class n. Etymology: < class n. Compare French classer (1756). Compare classify v. 1. a. transitive. To arrange in or analyse into classes according to shared qualities or characteristics. Now chiefly with into. Cf. classify v. 1. ΚΠ 1642 J. Jackson Bk. Conscience Ep. Ded. sig. A3^v There are foure Bookes written by God, for the sons of men, which are thus to be classed and ordered. 1653 T. Urquhart Logopandecteision i. 2 If the things themselves be categorically classed, the word whereby they are made known will not be tyed to any Alphabetical rule. 1705 J. Arbuthnot Tables Measures, Weights & Coins 110 I..considered that by the classing and methodizing such passages, I might instruct the Reader. 1755 S. Johnson Dict. Eng. Lang. Pref. A people polished by arts, and classed by subordination. 1794 R. J. Sulivan View Nature i. 72 This fact causes an insurmountable difficulty in classing mountains. 1893 Z. A. Ragozin tr. A. Leroy-Beaulieu Empire Tsars & Russians ii. ii. 67 The Finn race, outside of Hungary, is almost entirely comprised within European Russia, where it numbers five or six millions, divided into a dozen different tribes, classed into three or four families. 1977 Econometrica 45 1595 These theories may be classed into two types. 1999 T. A. Taku Framework for Industrialization in Afr. 119 The petroleum industry is typically classed into: prospecting and production, refining, petrochemical, transportation, and marketing operations. b. transitive. Chiefly Australian and New Zealand. To grade (wool) by quality and condition, esp. in a shearing shed. Cf. classer n. ΚΠ 1840 T. Southey Treat. Sheep Introd. p. v I endeavoured to show that the defective method practised in..washing, classing and packing their wool operated to the disadvantage of the grower. 1899 G. Jeffrey Princ. Australasian Woolclassing 38 If the sheep are properly drafted..the work of the Wool Classer is very much simplified, because he will be able to class each lot on its own merits. 1908 Transvaal Agric. Jrnl. Apr. 397 No uniform method for classing wool can be definitely laid down. 1961 Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Oct. 30/1 Woolclassers..want to see that wool they've classed..goes from wool-bin to wool-press unspoilt by floor sweepings. 2003 K. Armstrong All this Talk about Careers 133 The wool classer classes the wool according to its micron, length and strength. 2. a. transitive. To place in a class; to assign or regard as belonging to a particular category. Cf. classify v. 2. ΘΚΠ the world > relative properties > kind or sort > generality > condition or state of being inclusive > include [verb (transitive)] > in a class, description, or reckoning accounta1464 lap1552 include1575 shroud1593 comprise1597 list1622 classicate1654 classa1658 distribute1664 to run over ——1724 immerse1734 group1759 compute1818 classify1854 count1857 to ring in1916 a1658 J. Durham Pract. Expos. X. Commandements (1675) iv. 279 These good Works may be classed either with Works of mercy before, or with Works of necessity that follow. 1690 G. Mackenzie Reason i. 9 In what concerns our immortal Souls, and eternal state, we are more negligent, as will appear too clearly by these following Particulars which I have classed according to their different inferences. 1731 P. Miller Gardeners Dict. I. at Thalictrum Some Botanists have classed this Plant with Rues. 1776 A. Smith Inq. Wealth of Nations II. iv. viii. 273 I have classed artificers, manufacturers and merchants, among the productive labourers. View more context for this quotation 1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. 164 Widely as the two differed in opinion, they were popularly classed together as canting schismatics. 1871 B. Jowett tr. Plato Dialogues II. 170 You class injustice with wisdom and virtue. 1879 R. T. Smith St. Basil x. 115 We find far more difficulty in classing him. 1945 N. Streatfeild Saplings li. 242 She already had a name for being tiresome, now she was classed as a black sheep. 2006 Sunday Mercury (Birmingham) (Nexis) 23 Apr. 33 Middlesbrough's season can arguably, at this stage, be classed as a success. b. transitive. To form (a group of students) into a class or classes for instruction. Also: to assign (a student) to a particular class as the result of examination; to place in a class list. ΘΚΠ society > education > teaching > means of teaching > place in a class [verb (transitive)] class1783 1783 J. Hanway Proposal for County Naval Free-schools 57 These scholars may be classed in companies of ten.., every tenth scholar to be called a Captain of the gun. 1838 Jrnl. Stat. Soc. London 1 207 Evening schools, total 15. In one only the scholars were classed and questioned, and a periodical examination is held. 1850 Huron Reflector (Norwalk, Ohio) 23 July The primary scholars classed by themselves, with a teacher devoted entirely to them, will spend the school hours thrice as cheerfully and profitably. 1856 W. M. Thackeray Novels by Eminent Hands & Char. Sketches 75 At second year's examination..Tom was not classed at all. 1967 Van Wert (Ohio) Times-Bull. 7 Aug. 10/8 Beginning in September, Athens High School students will not be classed in grades such as freshmen or sophomores, but will pursue courses according to their level of achievement and ability. 1990 R. M. Polhemus Erotic Faith i. 25 A former Dean of Christ Church, Cyril Jackson, had got the university to accept an honours system of examination in classics and mathematics. Undergraduates were classed according to merit. 1992 Courier-Mail (Queensland) (Nexis) 29 June Students were classed by ability and not age. 3. intransitive. To rank; to be classed. ΚΠ 1748 S. Richardson Clarissa IV. xxviii. 172 If I cannot do credit..to the female sex, by bringing down such an angel as this to class with and adorn it. 1816 M. Keating Trav. Eur. & Afr. II. 92 This fine country..whose people class morally so high in the scale of mankind. 1866 H. Bushnell Vicarious Sacrifice i. ii. 63 Those who class as believers. 1912 Atlanta Constit. 1 Dec. a7 It [sc. College Park] has the famous Cox College and Georgia Military Academy, classing among the best institutions of learning in the state. 1988 Third World Q. 10 1199 An unusually large share of Zimbabwe's manufacturing value added arises from smelting and refining of metals, which class as manufacturing according to the United Nations' standard classification. 4. transitive. colloquial (originally U.S.). to class up: to give (something) an air of sophistication or stylishness, esp. in a superficial way; to make more classy. ΚΠ 1944 Washington Post 29 Dec. (Sports section) 8/4 We keep it [sc. wood] in the back yard..a mile and a sixteenth from the fireplace just to class up the neighborhood. 1966 N.Y. Times 1 Mar. 36 When an important client came in, Harry was called and instructed to walk purposefully around the office to class the place up. 1994 E. Rapping Media-tions 45 This version of the old 1970s ‘woman in danger’ flick has been classed up a bit these days and now finds itself in A—rather than B—movies. 2008 S. Reinhardt Dishing with Kitchen Virgin 3 I've learned how to take a tacky premade or boxed meal and class it up with cheese and a colorful side dish. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022). < n.adj.1533v.1642
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classn.adj.

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classv.