sorts

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of sort.

   Gardeners plant several sorts of tomato each spring.

   All sorts of people showed up to the town meeting.

   Note

   A regular plural, used mostly for the "general type" meaning: several sorts of tomato, all sorts of people. The noun after of can stay singular when it names a single kind, as in sorts of tomato, or become plural when it names members, as in sorts of people. The idiom out of sorts keeps the plural and has no singular form.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular present of sort.

   The conveyor sorts packages by destination automatically.

   She sorts through old letters whenever she has a free afternoon.

   Note

   The form a singular subject takes: the conveyor sorts, she sorts. It is spelled exactly like the plural noun, so context, not spelling, tells the verb from the noun. Most uses are transitive and take an object or the preposition through. The exception is the intransitive sense of joining or agreeing with others of the same kind, the one use where the verb stands without an object.

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