Emily Dickinson Lexicon

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.