Emily Dickinson Lexicon

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.