Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SOR'ROW-BLIGHT-ED, a.

Blighted with sorrow. – Moore.

SOR'ROW-ED, pp.

Accompanied with sorrow. [Not in use.] – Shak.

SOR'ROW-FUL, a.

1. Sad; grieving for the loss of some good, or on account of some expected evil.
2. Deeply serious; depressed; dejected. – 1 Sam. i.
3. Producing sorrow; exciting grief; mournful; as, a sorrowful accident.
4. Expressing grief; accompanied with grief; as, sorrowful meat. Job vi.

SOR'ROW-FUL-LY, adv.

In a sorrowful manner; in a manner to produce grief.

SOR'ROW-FUL-NESS, n.

State of being sorrowful; grief.

SOR'ROW-ING, n.

Expression of sorrow. – Browne.

SOR'ROW-ING, ppr.

Feeling sorrow, grief or regret.

SOR'ROW-LESS, a.

Free from sorrow.

SOR'ROW-STRICK-EN, a.

Struck with sorrow; depressed.

SOR'RY, a. [Sax. sarig, sari, from sar, sore.]

1. Grieved for the loss of some good; pained for some evil, that has happened to one's self or friends or country. It does not ordinarily imply severe grief, but rather slight or transient regret. It may be however, and often is used to express deep grief. We are sorry to lose the company of; those we love; we are sorry to lose friends or property; we are sorry for the misfortunes of our friends or of our country. And the king was sorry. – Matth. xiv.
2. Melancholy; dismal. Spenser.
3. Poor; mean; vile; worthless; as, a sorry slave; a sorry excuse. – L'Estrange. Dryden. Coarse complexions, / And cheeks of sorry grain. – Milton.

SORT, n. [Fr. sorte; It. sorta; Sp. suerte; Port. sorte; G. id.; D. soort; Sw. and Dan. sort; L. sors, lot, chance, state, way, sort. This word is from the root of Fr. sortir, It. sortire, L. sortior; the radical sense of which is to start or shoot, to throw or to fall, to come suddenly. Hence sors is lot, chance, that which comes or falls. The sense of sort is probably derivative, signifying that which is thrown out, separated or selected.]

1. A kind or species; any number or collection of individual persons or things characterized by the same or like qualities; as, a sort of men; a sort of horses; a sort of trees; a sort of poems or writings. Sort is not a technical word, and therefore is used with less precision or more latitude than genus or species in the sciences.
2. Manner; form of being or acting. Flowers, in such sort worn, can neither be smelt nor seen well by those that wear them. – Hooker. To Adam in what sort shall I appear? – Milton.
3. Class or order; as, men of the wiser sort, or the better sort; all sorts of people. [See Def. 1.]
4. Rank; condition above the vulgar. [Not in use.] – Shak.
5. A company or knot of people. [Not in use.] – Shak. Waller.
6. Degree of any quality. I shall not be wholly without praise, if in some sort I have copied his style. – Dryden.
7. Lot. [Obs.] – Shak.
8. A pair; a set; a suit.

SORT, v.i.

1. To be joined with others of the same species. Nor do metals only sort with metals in the earth, and minerals with minerals. – Woodward.
2. To consort; to associate. The illiberality of parents toward children, makes them base and sort with any company. – Bacon.
3. To suit; to fit. They are happy whose natures sort with their vocations. – Bacon.
4. To terminate; to issue; to have success. [Fr. sortir.] [Not in use.] – Bacon.
5. To fall out. [Not in use.] – Shak.

SORT, v.t.

1. To separate, as things having like qualities from other things, and place them in distinct classes or divisions; as, to sort cloths according to their colors; to sort wool or thread according to its fineness. Shell fish have been, by some of the ancients, compared and sorted with insects. – Bacon. Rays which differ in refrangibility, may be parted and sorted from one another. – Newton.
2. To reduce to order from a state of confusion. [See supra.]
3. To conjoin; to put together in distribution. The swain perceiving by her words ill sorted, / That she was wholly from herself transported. – Brown.
4. To cull; to choose from a number; to select. That he may sort her out a worthy spouse. – Chapman.

SORT'A-BLE, a.

1. That may be sorted.
2. Suitable; befitting. – Bacon.

SORT'A-BLY, adv.

Suitably; fitly.

SORT'AL, a.

Pertaining to or designating a sort. [Not in use.] – Locke.

SORT'ANCE, n.

Suitableness; agreement. [Not in use.] – Shak.

SORT'ED, pp.

Separated and reduced to order from state of confusion.

SOR-TIE', n. [Fr. from sortir, to issue.]

A sally; the issuing of a body of troops from a besieged place to attack the besiegers.

SORT'I-LEGE, n. [Fr. from L. sortilegium; sors, lot, and lego, to select.]

The act or practice of drawing lots. – J. M. Mason. [Sortilegy is not used.]

SORT-I-LE'GI-OUS, a.

Pertaining to sortilege. – Daubuz.

SORT'ING, ppr.

Separating, as things having like qualities from other things, and reducing to order.

SOR-TI'TION, n. [L. sortitio.]

Selection or appointment by lot. – Bp. Hall.

SORT'MENT, n.

1. The act of sorting; distribution into classes or kinds.
2. A parcel sorted. [This word is superseded by Assortment, – which see.]

SO'RUS, n. [plur. Sori. Gr.]

In botany, small clusters of minute capsules on the back of the fronds of ferns.