What does "category" mean?

1. (a group or class) a group of things or people that are similar in some way. 2. (mathematical structure) a collection of objects and the connections between them that follow specific rules.

category

US //ˈkætəˌɡɔɹi// UK //kˈætɪɡəɹi// cat·e·go·ry

1 a group or class (n.)
B1 Intermediate Academic

a group of things or people that are similar in some way.

a class or division in a system of classification.

Example

The competition has a separate category for children under the age of ten.

Example

Researchers sorted the survey responses into three distinct categories based on the participants' level of professional experience.
2 mathematical structure (n.)
C2 Proficiency Technical Math

a collection of objects and the connections between them that follow specific rules.

a collection of objects together with a collection of arrows between them, where composition is associative and identity arrows exist.

Example

In his advanced math class, they studied the category of all sets.

Example

Category theory provides a powerful framework for finding commonalities between different mathematical structures like groups and topological spaces.

Origin

Late Middle English, borrowed from French catégorie, from Middle French categorie, from Late Latin catēgoria (“class of predicables”), from Ancient Greek κατηγορία (katēgoría, “head of predicables”). Doublet of categoria.