classificatoryadj.

1837 W. Whewell Hist. Inductive Sci. III. xviii. i. 491 Descriptive geology..is one of the classificatory sciences, like mineralogy or botany.

1870 G. Rolleston Forms Animal Life 139 These characters are probably to be regarded as explicable by reference to a community of habit, and therefore as devoid of classificatory value.

1916 L. M. Terman Measurem. Intelligence xiv. 222 The best classificatory definitions are those which subsume the object under the next higher class and give the more essential traits..which distinguish the object from others of the class named.

1961 J. Rex Key Probl. Sociol. Theory i. 7 Durkheim..expects sociology to follow a classificatory method.

2003 L. Moss What Genes can't Do iv. 122 Von Baer accepted Cuvier's classificatory framework and imported it into the research program.

1870 L. H. Morgan Syst. Consanguinity ii. i. 143 In contradiction from descriptive the term classificatory will be employed to characterize the system of consanguinity and affinity of the Ganowanian, Turanian, and Malayan families, which..are arranged into great classes or categories upon principles of discrimination peculiar to these families.

1872 Jrnl. Royal Anthropol. Inst. 1 3 Mr. Morgan divides the systems of relationship into two great classes, the descriptive and the classificatory.

1936 R. Firth We, the Tikopia vi. 200 Tikopia kinship is of course of the type known as classificatory. The material relations between a child and his or her ‘fathers’ who are near kindred depend to a great extent upon factors of residence and the social contacts that this implies.

1964 Amer. Anthropologist 66 868 Icelandic kinship terms may be divided into four classes:..IV. Quaternary Terms denote relatively large or indeterminate groups; also included are the classificatory terms that may be used for the individuals making up Quaternary groups.

1990 Ethnology 29 144 His classificatory wife's brother, to whom he owes service, would be the same person as his classificatory sister's husband, who owes him service.

2004 R. M. W. Dixon & A. R. Vogel Jarawara Lang. of Southern Amazonia i. 7 The Jarawara have a classificatory kinship system..by which each member of the community is related to everyone else... Mother's sister's children and father's sister's children (parallel-cousins) count as equivalent to mother's children and father's children—that is, they are classificatory siblings.