classify

1. 1.

   arrange or order by classes or categories

   “How would you classify these pottery shards--are they prehistoric?”

   Synonymsclasssortassortsort outseparate

   Broadercategorize

   Narrowerunitizecatalogueisolatereferreclassifysizedichotomizepigeonholegroupgrade
2. 2.

   declare unavailable, as for security reasons

   “Classify these documents”

   Antonymsdeclassify

   Broaderrestrict
3. 3.

   assign to a class or kind

   “How should algae be classified?”

   “People argue about how to relegate certain mushrooms”

   Synonymsrelegate

   Broaderassign

Other forms of classify

past tense or participle

classified

present participle

classifying·

third person

classifies·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about classify

What does classify mean?

classify means "arrange or order by classes or categories". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in classify?

classify has 3 syllables: clas-si-fy. The stress falls on "clas". In IPA it is /ˈklæsəˌfaɪ/.

What is another word for classify?

Close synonyms include class, sort, assort, sort out, separate. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of classify?

The recorded antonyms are declassify.

Is classify a common word?

classify is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with classify?

72 words rhyme with classify. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.