Philosophy & ThoughtGreek → English
Category
/ˈkætəɡɔːri/noun
A class into which things are sorted by shared properties.
The Greek roots
κατά
katá
against, down
ἀγορεύειν
agoreúein
to speak in public
Literally: “a speaking against, an accusation”
The story of the word
Katēgoría was a courtroom word first, an accusation, from speaking against someone in the assembly. Aristotle took it for the ten ways anything can be predicated of a subject, substance and quantity and quality and the rest, and the legal sense dropped out of philosophy. Kant later used it for the mind's own sorting frames. The old meaning survives in Revelation, where the accuser of the brethren is the katēgōr.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
categoricalagoraallegory
In a sentence
The form has no category for what she actually does for a living.