1. [n]  education imparted in a series of lessons or class meetings; "he took a course in basket weaving"; "flirting is not unknown in college classes"
2. [n]  (informal) elegance in dress or behavior; "she has a lot of class"
3. [n]  a collection of things sharing a common attribute; "there are two classes of detergents"
4. [n]  people having the same social or economic status; "the working class"; "an emerging professional class"
5. [n]  
6. [n]  a body of students who are taught together; "early morning classes are always sleepy"
7. [n]  a body of students who graduate together; "the class of '97"; "she was in my year at Hoehandle High"
8. [n]  a league ranked by quality; "he played baseball in class D for two years"; "Princeton is in the NCAA Division 1-AA"
9. [v]  arrange or order by classes or categories; "How would you classify these pottery shards--are they prehistoric?"

1. \Class\ (kl[.a]s), n. [F. classe, fr. L. classis class,
   collection, fleet; akin to Gr. klh^sis a calling, kalei^n 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.      --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.
   {Class of a curve} (Math.), 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.
   

2. \Class\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Classed}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Classing}.] [Cf. F. classer. See {Class}, n.]
   1. To arrange in classes; to classify or refer to some class;
      as, to class words or passages.
   Note: In scientific arrangement, to classify is used instead
         of to class. --Dana.
   2. To divide into classes, as students; to form into, or
      place in, a class or classes.
   

3. \Class\, v. i.
   To grouped or classed.
         The genus or famiky under which it classes. --Tatham.
   

1. 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. See type class.

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

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

1. a major division of a phylum, consisting of closely related orders.
2. a ranked group within a stratified society characterized by achieved status and considerable social mobility.