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categorist

categorist

8.7
A person who sorts things into groups, like items or information
  • noun
  • /ˈkætəˌɡɔrɪst/
  • Specialized
translation icon : categorista
  • As a categorist, she organized the library by genre to help users find books more easily.

Examples

  • The categorist at the museum carefully classified the artifacts according to their historical significance.

  • They are "... dogmatists, categorists, absolutists, "know-alls"; they must be fanatics, intolerant; when they meet others of their kind, a fight must follow, etc.

    Blog text (30)
  • The categorist dimensions of Brandeis's methodology in Whitney suggest that he intended to turn late nineteenth-century orthodox jurisprudence on its head.

    Academic text (1996)
  • Or, alternatively, should an enhanced version of the categorist methodology suggested by Brandeis in Whitney, premised on a stark separation between "public" and "private" speech, replace the social interest balancing proposed by Chafee and operationalized in the clear and present danger test?

    Academic text (1996)
  • During the conference, the categorist presented a framework for sorting data in scientific research.

Synonyms

cataloger
vscategorist
  • US
1 4.9

A person who organizes books and other items in a library by subject and number

applies to classification generally and beyond library systems
classifier
vscategorist
6.1

A person who arranges things into groups

is used especially in academic or technical contexts
categorizer
vscategorist
  • US
4.8

A person or machine that sorts things into groups

refers specifically to a human who classifies rather than a tool

Surface Forms

categorist singular
categorists plural

Morphology

categorist = category (transparent) = category + ist

Formed from the familiar noun 'category' plus the productive agentive suffix '-ist', so the meaning 'person who classifies' is directly derivable.

Etymology

The word categorist starts with category meaning 'a group' and ends with -ist meaning 'a person who does something', as in artist or pianist. So a categorist is someone who makes or studies categories and sorts things into groups.