Pl. classes. [16th c. a. L. classis a class or division of the Roman people.]
1. A division of the Roman people according to property and taxation.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 462. The best man in all Rome was valewed to be worth in goods not aboue 110000 Asses in brasse … and this was counted the first Classis.
† 2. A division according to rank; a CLASS.
1594. Bp. King, Jonas (1618), 388. They runne through all the classies and rankes of vanitie.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., I. viii. 33. In the same classis, may well be placed Vincentius Belluacensis.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 36. Animals that come nearest the classis of Plants.
1704. Swift, T. Tub, I. (1750), 27. It is under this classis I have presumed to list my present treatise.
1714. Fr. Bk. Rates, 394. The Commissary or Clark of each Classis of that Division.
b. In U.S., formerly used for a class in college or school.
3. In certain Presbyterian churches: an inferior judicatory consisting of the elders or pastors of the parishes or churches of a district; a presbytery. Used in England under the Commonwealth; and subsequently in certain Reformed churches of the continent, and America.
1593. Abp. Bancroft, Dangerous Positions, iii. 13 (T.). Assemblies are either classes or synods: classes are conferences of the fewest ministers of churches, standing near together, as for example of twelve.
1646. Ord. Lords & Com., Sacram., 8. Scandalous sinnes … shall be certified to any Classis, either from any Congregationall Eldership, or otherwise.
1663. Butler, Hud., I. i. 31/838. Bear-baiting may be … as lawful as is Provincial and Parochial Classis.
a. 1679. T. Goodwin, Wks., IV. 114 (R.). The reformed churches, in France, call it a presbytery; and the meeting of the elders over many congregations, that they call the classis.
1761. Hume, Hist. Eng., III. liii. 138, note. A presbytery in Scotland is an inferior Ecclesiastical Court, the same that was afterwards called a classis in England.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 273. The Dutch Reformed churches … six classes, which form one synod. Each classis delegates two ministers and an elder to represent them in synod.
b. The district formed by the parishes so united.
1653. G. Firmin, Sober Reply, 7. Our Classis runnes 14 miles in length, and 20 severall Parishes in it.
1761–2. Hume, Hist. Eng. (1806), IV. lviii. 399. A number of neighbouring parishes, commonly between twelve and twenty, formed a classis.
† 4. In a library: A name originally equivalent to ‘stall,’ i.e., a case of book-shelves standing out at right angles to the wall; afterwards applied to the compartment formed by the shelves in the adjacent sides of two ‘stalls,’ together with those under the window between them. Obs.
1625. B. Jonson, Staple of N., I. ii. (1631), 9. The great roomes He has taken for the Office, and set vp His Deskes and Classes, Tables and his Shelues.
1641. J. Jackson, True Evang. T., III. 230. Cornelius à Lapide,… whose volumes … take up halfe a Classis in our publique Libraries.
1710. Hearne, Collect. (Oxf. H. S.), III. 96. Putting Books in Shelves under the Classes of the Middle Part of the Publick Library.
1886. R. Willis, Archit. Hist. Univ. Camb., III. 438.
5. attrib.
1715. Lond. Gaz., No. 5384/2. Lost … ten Orders of the Classis Lottery 1712.
