[In 17th c. classe, a. F. classe (14th c. in Littré), ad. L. classis: see CLASSIS, which was in earlier use. The evidence for the Eng. word begins with Blount; but there is an earlier (casual) Sc. use: sense 8.]
1. Roman Hist. Each of the six divisions or orders of the Roman people in the constitution ascribed to Servius Tullius.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., s.v. 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.
a. 1859. De Quincey, Lett. Yng. Man, Wks. XIV. 57, note. 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.’
2. A division or order of society according to status; a rank or grade of society.
Now common in the phrases Higher (Upper), Middle, Lower Classes, Working Classes; which appear to be of modern introduction. Higher and Lower Orders were formerly used. This appears to be only partly derived from sense 1, and largely from the general sense 6.
[1656. Blount, Glossogr., Classe … an order or distribution of people according to their several Degrees.]
1772. Hanway (title), Observations on the Causes of the Dissoluteness which reigns among the lower classes of the people.
1806. Med. Jrnl., XV. 428. Its efficacy here, among the lower class, to whom above 4,000 copies have been distributed, is beyond our expectations.
1816. Owen (title), Two Memorials on behalf of the Working Classes.
1826. J. Wilson, Noct. Ambr., Wks. 1855, I. 379. Pickin out the letters o’ the alphabet, like ane o’ the working classes at a Mechanic Institution.
1830. Decl. Birmingh. Pol. Union, in Life T. Attwood, x. (1885), 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.
1832. Blackw. Mag., Jan., 131/2. Calumniating the ‘middle classes.’
1832. A. Fonblanque, Eng. under 7 Administr. (1837), II. 268. The best of the higher orders … the worst of the lowest classes.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Cockayne, Wks. (Bohn), II. 67. The habit of brag runs through all classes, from the Times newspaper … down to the boys of Eton.
a. 1862. Buckle, Civiliz. (1869), II. iii. 150. Our great Rebellion was in its external form a war of classes.
1876. Green, Short Hist., iv. § 4 (1882), 193. The tyranny of class over class.
b. The system of such divisions of society; rank (esp. high rank), caste. c. The classes: the classes of the community raised above or separated from ‘the masses’ or great body of the people.
1845. Disraeli, Sybil (1863), 199. Walled out from sympathy by prejudices and convictions more impassable than all the mere consequences of class.
1886. 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 uniformily on the wrong side, and have uniformily been beaten.
1887. Fowler, Princ. Morals, II. ii. 99. An intense feeling of class or caste.
3. A division of the scholars for students of an institution, receiving the same instruction or ranked together as of the same standing. Also, the assembling or attendance of such a body; the instruction, lessons, or course of lectures given thereat.
In English Grammar Schools the traditional and conventional division is into Six Forms numbered from the lowest upward. In large schools these are for practical purposes often subdivided into lower, middle, and upper or other divisions, which are really distinct classes. The number of Classes, on the contrary, when this term is used, is unlimited, and they are usually reckoned from the highest downward.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Classe … In Schools (wherein this word is most used) a Form or Lecture restrained to a certain company of Scholars.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I. 80. He went through the usual classes of Logick and Philosophy with unwearied industry.
1740. J. Clarke, Educ. Youth (ed. 3), 209. The Boys of the upper Classes may be admitted.
1828. Lytton, Pelham, I. ii. 11. I was in the head class when I left Eton.
1875–6. Edinb. Univ. Cal., 68. Examinations on the work done in the Class.
1883. G. Lloyd, Ebb & Flow, II. 167. There’s an evening class of little street arabs.
Mod. Is the School divided into Classes or Forms?
b. spec. In U.S. colleges, a division containing all students of the same standing, who enter the same year, pursue together the various steps of the academic course, and finally graduate together at the close of their fourth year: each class is named from the year of its graduation, e.g., ‘the class of 1825,’ that of Longfellow and Hawthorne, at Bowdoin College. Hence class-system, now often opposed to the ‘university system,’ in which this uniform fixed curriculum does not obtain. Also class day, etc.: see 10.
1828. in Webster.
1862. [see CLASS-DAY in 10].
1870. Porter, Amer. Colleges, 191. We do not see how an American college without fixed Classes can have an efficient common life…. Should the class be destroyed or set aside by the substitution of the régime of the university for the régime of the college, the energy and interest of the common life … must inevitably go with it. Ibid. The class system is essential to an efficient and energetic common college life.
1875. Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus (On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Bowdoin College class of 1825).
1882. Memoir of Longfellow, in Poems (Chandos), 10. It was a remarkable class in which he found himself, for it contained … Nathaniel Hawthorne, George B. Cheever, and J. S. C. Abbott.
1887. Cabot, Mem. Emerson, 62. The class of 1821 [Emerson’s] held for fifty years its annual reunion at Cambridge.
4. A division of candidates or competitors according to merit, as a result of examination. Also attrib.; and elliptically, a class certificate or degree, as in to take a class at Oxford = to take an honours degree in one of the Schools.
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.
1861. M. Burrows, Pass & Class (1866), 21. The Pass papers occupy one day, the Class papers from four to five. Ibid., 29. What particular class a man has obtained.
1863. Lond. Univ. Cal., First B.A., 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.
1868. M. Pattison, Academ. Org., 230. This is the distinction between what is compulsory on all, and what is left to voluntary ambition—the distinction between ‘Pass’ and ‘Class.’ Ibid., 298. Dr. Pusey, living on the spot, can discriminate between the ‘Pass’ and the ‘Class’ curriculum.
Mod. I shall read for a class in History. He will be lucky if he gets his class at all. All members of the corps must go down to the butts this week to shoot their class.
5. A division of things according to grade or quality, as high or low, first, second, etc.
Esp. used for the different grades of accommodation in travelling by railway or steamboat. The phrases high-class, low-class, first-class, second-class, and the like, are common in attrib. use, e.g., ‘high-class goods,’ ‘second-class passenger.’ See HIGH, LOW, FIRST CLASS, etc.
1694. R. Burthogge, Reason, 234. A Conjurer of the Highest Class.
1852. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., II. 173. I came by the second-class, and so saved the nine shillings my gig had cost me.
1879. Sala, in Daily Tel., 26 Dec. Inability … to make up her mind as to what class she means to travel by.
6. gen. A number of individuals (persons or things) possessing common attributes, and grouped together under a general or ‘class’ name; a kind, sort, division. (Now the leading sense.)
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort. (1729), 201. Anemonies and Flowers of that Class should be discreetly pruned.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 77, ¶ 2. This Class of modern Wits I shall reserve for a chapter by itself.
1742. Pope, Dunc., IV. 89. Whate’er of mongrel no one class admits, A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.
1789. Belsham, Ess., II. xli. 532. Civil incapacities affecting whole classes of citizens.
1810. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 30. The class of readers, to which he means to address his communications.
1835. Ure, Philos. Manuf., 372. Comparing the wages paid to operatives of the different classes, sexes, and ages.
1870. Rolleston, Anim. Life, 132. A third nerve of the sympathetic class.
b. in Logical classification.
1846. Mill, Logic (1856), I. vii. § 1. By every general name which we introduce, we create a class, if there be any things, real or imaginary, to compose it.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., III. ii. § 17 (1864), 480. A class differs from a catalogue by virtue of a common resemblance in the midst of diversity.
1869. Fowler, Deduct. Logic, 64. We conceive that there is no limit to our power of making classes.
c. Natural History. One of the highest groups into which the Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral Kingdom is divided, a class being subdivided into orders, and these again to genera, and species.
Intermediate groups are now often established between these; thus above classes are sub-kingdoms.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v. Botany, The knowledge of the classes, genera, species … of plants.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., ix. Explanation of the Classes in the Linnæan System.
1847. Carpenter, Zool., § 8. The principal groups, or classes, are subdivided into others, termed orders.
1869. Oliver, Elem. Bot., II. § 4. 125. The characters of a Class are common not only to its Subclasses and Divisions, but to the Natural Orders, Genera, and Species included in that Class.
d. Geom. (see quot.)
1869. Salmon, Conic Sections (ed. 5), § 145, note. A curve is said to be of the nth class, when through any point n tangents can be drawn to the curve. 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.
7. Eccles. a. = CLASSIS 3.
1785. Warton, Notes on Milton’s Poems, 327 (T.). 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.
b. In the Methodist societies: A subdivision of a congregation or society, meeting under a ‘class-leader’ for religious purposes.
1742. Wesley, Wks. (1872), I. 357. 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. Every society is divided into companies of ten or fifteen, called classes; each of which regularly meets the leader once a week.
1885. Minutes Wesleyan Conf., 361. The Quarterly visitation of the Classes is our most important official work.
† 8. [L. classis, It. classe.] A fleet or navy. rare.
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., IV. (1887), 202. He furnissed a meruellous classe, quhilke to the sey he sett ladne with a multitude innumerable of men of armes.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Classe (classis), a ship, or Navy.
9. attrib. or quasi-adj. (in sense 2), ‘pertaining to a class, or classes, of society,’ often ‘pertaining to the upper classes,’ as in class-education, -grievance, -interest, journal, -legislation, privilege.
1852. Dickens, Bleak Ho., vii., The turkey always troubled with a class-grievance (probably Christmas).
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Race. Bitter class-legislation.
1856. R. Vaughan, Mystics (1860), II. 256. It knows nothing of class-religion.
1861. Times, 21 Nov., 6/5. The word ‘class,’ when employed as an adjective, is too often intended to convey some reproach. We speak of ‘class prejudices’ and ‘class legislation,’ and inveigh against the selfishness of ‘class interests.’
1868. M. Pattison, Academ. Org., 326. Class-education would seem to be as rooted an idea in the English mind, as denominational religion.
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., III. xix. 326. If their class-sympathies were with the clergy.
1879. T. H. S. Escott, England, I. 97. The inexpediency of allowing magistrates to adjudicate in special cases in which they have a class interest.
1888. Pall Mall Gaz., 4 May, 11/2. The class journals, whose raison d’être is to classify and concentrate all the news that affects a particular trade for the benefit of those engaged therein.
10. Comb., as class-notion, -room, -teaching, -variety; in sense 7 b, class-leader, -meeting, -system; class-wise adv.; class-book, a book used in class-teaching; class-cup (U.S.), a silver cup presented by a College Class to the first son born to one of the members after graduation; class-day (U.S.), the day on which, in American Colleges, the Senior Class celebrate, with literary and social festivities, the completion of their college course; class-fellow, a scholar or student in the same class with others at school or college; class-firing, trial shooting among riflemen, to obtain a position in one of the classes; class-list, a list of the members of a class (sense 3); also spec. a list containing the names of those who have passed an examination, arranged in classes according to merit; class-man, (at Oxford University) one who is placed in a class-list or obtains ‘honours’ after examination; so classmanship (nonce-wd.); class-name, the name of a logical class, a general name; in Gram. the chief division of Common Nouns, including such as are common to every individual of a class, e.g., man, dog, book, tree; † class-office, ? a lottery-office; class-subject, a subject taught in a class; also, one set for examination in honours; class-ticket, in Sc. Universities, a ticket given to a student certifying attendance at any class.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., II. iii. 119. Among the earliest tools … which a man … of letters, gets to handle, are his *Class-books.
1876. Grant, Burgh Sch. Scotl., II. xiii. 347. At present Cæsar is considered an elementary class-book.
1862. E. Dicey, in Macm. Mag., Aug., 293/1. According to the Yankee phrase, he had a good time of it that *class-day at Cambridge [U.S.] among his old comrades and classmates.
1886. J. Quincy, in Holmes, Life Emerson, 45. Emerson accepted the duty of delivering the Poem on Class Day.
1873. Edin. Univ. Cal., 336. Annual salaries (exclusive of *Class Fees) attached … to the Professorships, [etc.].
1734. Berkeley, Lett., 23 Feb. Wks. 1871, IV. 214. A *class-fellow of mine in the College.
1888. Vct. Melgund, in 19th Cent., XXXIII. 563. With Mounted Riflemen, *class-firing alone gives a good deal of work.
1857. Kingsley, Two Y. Ago, iv. 85. A tidy, God-fearing person…. One of these Methodist *class-leaders.
1887. Sir R. H. Roberts, In the Shires, i. 14. It was seen at the head of the *class-list in the school quadrangle when the class-lists were posted.
a. 1859. De Quincey, Lett. Yng. Man, Wks. XIV. 57, note. 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.
1861. M. Burrows, Pass & Class (1866), 263, note. Xenophon’s … works are not those usually taken up by the Class-man.
1885. L. Stephen, Life H. Fawcett, iii. 76. A youth just fresh from his *classmanship often impresses his seniors as a little too condescending.
1884. American, VIII. 71. Chapel and *class-meeting pulled one way, and church the other.
1870. Bowen, Logic, xi. 353. All the original and essential qualities of the objects denoted by the *class-name. Ibid., vii. 221. In a hierarchy of Concepts, the same *class-notion is at once a Genus to the class below, and a Species to the class above.
1714. Lond. Gaz., No. 5228/4. Whoever brings them to Mr. Ravand at the *Class-Office Anno 1712, at the Exchequer, shall have 40s. reward.
1870. N. Porter, Amer. Colleges, 192. Under the searching tests of the *Class-rooms the capacity of each man is satisfactorily ascertained.
1882. Buxton, in 19th Cent., Nov., 792, note. The *class subjects include English grammar, history, [etc.].
1873. Earle, Philol. Eng. Tong. (ed. 2), § 211. The grammarian … forms rules in which he legislates *class-wise for the words so grouped.
