1. The action of classifying or arranging in classes, according to common characteristics or affinities; assignment to the proper class.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 272. Montesquieu observed very justly, that in their classification of the citizens, the great legislators of antiquity made the greatest display of their powers.
1804. Abernethy, Surg. Observ., 18. In attempting a classification of tumours.
1847. Carpenter, Zool., § 2. The object of all Classification … [is] to bring together those beings which most resemble each other and to separate those that differ.
1874. Blackie, Self-Cult., 19. Nothing helps the memory so much as order and classification.
2. The result of classifying; a systematic distribution, allocation, or arrangement, in a class or classes; esp. of things that form the subject-matter of a science or of a methodic inquiry.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., II. 196. De Saussure gives us this brief classification of volcanic substances.
1834. J. M. Good, Study Med. (4th ed.), I. p. x. A syllabus of its classification for the purpose of lecturing from.
1856. Sir B. Brodie, Psychol. Inq., I. vi. 230. The classification of faculties which these writers have made is altogether artificial.
1860. Maury, Phys. Geog. Sea, xi. § 505. Red fogs … do not properly come under our classification of sea fogs.
Mod. Several classifications have been made.
