Categise

First attested around the turn of the sixteenth century. The origin is uncertain; derivation is perhaps from the Ancient Greek καταιγίζω (kataigizō, "I rush down like a storm"), from καταιγίς (kataigis, "a storm descending from above”, figuratively “battle").

Alternative forms

• categize

Full definition of categise

Verb

1. (rare) thrash (verbally or physically).
• 1580–1615, an unknown source, quoted in: Henk Gras, All Semblative a Woman’s Part? (1991), page 241:Conceale your qualitie till we be private; if your parts be worthie of me, I will countenance you, if not, categize you.
• 1962, The Philosopher XIII, page 49:Thus he categised the churches of his day as “The mills of Satan”, where men “in his synagogues worship Satan under the unalterable name”.

See catechism.

Noun

1. (archaic, rare) Eye dialect of catechism
• 1821, Dorothea Primrose Campbell, Harley Radington I, ch. xxii, p. 225:“Oh, sir, I’ll answer ten thousand, gin ye like till ask them, as carefully and pointedly as if I wir saying my categise.”