| 释义 |
cat·e·go·ry
I. \ˈkad.əˌgōrē, -atə-, -ȯr-, -ri\ noun
(-es)
Etymology: Late Latin categoria, from Greek katēgoria, from katēgorein to accuse, affirm, predicate, from kata- cata- + -agorein to speak publicly, from agora assembly — more at gregarious
1. : one of the most abstract and universal terms, concepts, or notions:
a. in Aristotle
(1) : one of the major forms of predication
(2) : one of the most ultimate modes of being (as substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, possession, action, affection)
b. in Kant : one of the pure a priori forms of the understanding
< the category of quantity (unity, plurality, universality) >
< the category of quality (relation, negation, limitation) >
< the category of relation (substantiality, causality, reciprocity) >
< the category of modality (possibility, actuality, necessity) >
c. in post-Kantian philosophy : any major fundamental conception or general class of concepts
< categories — that is, controlling conceptions of inquiry — John Dewey >
2. : a class, group, or classification of any kind: as
a. : one of several groupings of related soils in the international classification developed by the United States Department of Agriculture
b. : a division of the dependent population whose needs are attended to by specific government measures
< the aged, the blind, dependent children are in separate relief categories >
3. categories noun plural but singular in construction : a game in which the players decide on a keyword and a list of categories (as cities, animals, tools) and then try within a time limit to fill in under each letter of the keyword a name beginning with that letter to fit each category — called also guggenheim
Synonyms: see class
II. noun
: a mathematical class of objects (as groups or topological spaces) together with a set of structure-preserving mappings (as homomorphisms or continuous functions) between the members of the class such that the operation of applying one mapping after another to produce a single combined mapping is associative and the set of mappings includes an identity element
• categorical adjective |