classify

5 definitions • 9 examples

to divide things or people into groups according to their type, or to say which group or type something or someone belongs to:

The books in the library are classified by subject.

Biologists classify animals and plants into different groups.

be classified as children who are classified as overweight

to officially state that information is secret:

The Ministry of Defence moved quickly to classify the documents.

He has the authority to classify information as Top Secret.

to divide things into groups according to type:

We classify our books by subject.

Classify also means to divide organisms into groups according to particular characteristics.

to divide people or things into groups according to their characteristics:

classify sb/sth as sth A screen-printing firm can have as many as 500 employees and still be classified as a small business.

classify sb/sth by sth Imports are now classified by country of despatch, rather than country of origin.

classify sb/sth into sth We've classified total expenditure into two major categories, (a) Current expenditure (b) Development expenditure.