class

Webster's Dictionary (1913)

Origin: F. classe, fr. L. classis class, collection, fleet; akin to Gr. κλῆσις a calling, καλεῖν to call, E. claim, haul.

1. A group of individuals ranked together as possessing common characteristics; as, the different classes of society; the educated class; the lower classes.

2. A number of students in a school or college, of the same standing, or pursuing the same studies.

3. A comprehensive division of animate or inanimate objects, grouped together on account of their common characteristics, in any classification in natural science, and subdivided into orders, families, tribes, genera, etc.

4. A set; a kind or description, species or variety.

She had lost one class energies.— Thomas Babington Macaulay

5. Methodist Church One of the sections into which a church or congregation is divided, and which is under the supervision of a class leader.

6. One session of formal instruction in which one or more teachers instruct a group on some subject. The class may be one of a course of classes, or a single special session.

7. A high degree of elegance, in dress or behavior; the quality of bearing oneself with dignity, grace, and social adeptness.

Class of a curve Mathematics, the kind of a curve as expressed by the number of tangents that can be drawn from any point to the curve. A circle is of the second class. — Class meeting Methodist Church, a meeting of a class under the charge of a class leader, for counsel and relegious instruction.

Origin: Cf. F. classer. See Class, noun

1. To arrange in classes; to classify or refer to some class; as, to class words or passages.

☞ In scientific arrangement, to classify is used instead of to class. James Dwight Dana

2. To divide into classes, as students; to form into, or place in, a class or classes.

To be grouped or classed.

The genus or family under which it classes.— Edward Tatham

exhibiting refinement and high character; as, a class act. Opposite of low-class informal Syn. — high-class.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), from GCIDE 0.54 · with additions: GCIDE editors

Free On-line Dictionary of Computing

1.<programming> The prototype for an object in an object-oriented language; analogous to a derived type in a procedural language. A class may also be considered to be a set of objects which share a common structure and behaviour. The structure of a class is determined by the class variables which represent the state of an object of that class and the behaviour is given by a set of methods associated with the class.

Classes are related in a class hierarchy. One class may be a specialisation (a "subclass") of another (one of its "superclasses") or it may be composed of other classes or it may use other classes in a client-server relationship. A class may be an abstract class or a concrete class.

See also signature.

2.<programming> See type class.

3.<networking> One of three types of Internet addresses distinguished by their most significant bits.

3.<language> A language developed by the Andrew Project. It was one of the first attempts to add object-oriented features to C.

(1995-05-01)