classes

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of class.

   Most students juggle five or six classes at once.

   Sociologists examine how social classes shape opportunity.

   Note

   Only the countable meanings of class take a plural: groups and categories, social ranks, groups of students, courses of lessons. Class as elegance, or as the division of society itself, stays singular, so someone can have class but never classes. The same spelling also serves as the plural of classis and as the verb's present form, so context decides which is meant.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of class.

   The museum classes the artifact among its earliest holdings.

   She classes herself as an optimist despite the setbacks.

   Note

   Unlike its noun twin, this form does something: it puts a thing in a category. It usually takes an object followed by as or among, often reflexively (she classes herself as a realist). Without an object it means "is grouped," as when a wine classes with the region's best. Classifies is its close synonym.

   This vintage classes with the finest of the decade.

   The species classes among the rarest in the region.

3. 3
   SayKLAS-eez/ˈklæsiːz/

   noun

   Plural of classis.

   Delegates from the regional classes gathered for the annual assembly.

   The reforms required approval from a majority of the classes.

   Note

   Here the singular is classis, a word with jobs of its own. In the Dutch Reformed Church and similar bodies, classes are regional church judicatories ranking between the consistory and the synod, much as presbyteries do in the Presbyterian church. Biological classification uses classis for the rank between divisio and ordo, while its general sense of "sort" or "kind" is obsolete.

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