Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Class \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.