[f. prec. sb. Cf. F. classer.]
† 1. trans. To divide or distribute into classes, to CLASSIFY. Obs.
1705. Arbuthnot, Coins (1727), 110 (J.). I then considered that by the classing and methodizing such passages, I might instruct the Reader in the Subject.
1755. Johnson, Dict., Pref. A people polished by arts, and classed by subordination.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., i. 72. This fact causes an insurmountable difficulty in classing mountains.
2. To place in a class, assign to its proper class or group.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., IV. ix. (1869), II. 260. I have classed artificers, manufacturers, and merchants among the productive labourers.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 165. Widely as the two differed in opinion, they were popularly classed together as canting schismatics.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 218. You class injustice with wisdom and virtue.
1879. R. T. Smith, St. Basil the Great, x. 115. We find far more difficulty in classing him.
b. To place (students or scholars) in a class or classes, for instruction in common; to place in a particular class as the result of examination, to place in a class-list.
18[?]. Thackeray, Character Sk., Misc. V. 331 (Hoppe). At a second year’s examination … Tom was not classed at all.
3. intr. (for refl.) To take one’s position in, or fall into, a (particular) class or division; to rank; to be classed.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), IV. 246. If I cannot do credit … to the female sex, by bringing down such an angel as this to class with and adorn it.
1816. Keatinge, Trav., II. 92. This fine country … whose people class morally so high in the scale of mankind.
1865. Bushnell, Vicar. Sacr., ii. (1866), 63. Those who class as believers.
