classifier

Everyday

1. A person or thing that sorts things into groups. tree →
2. (computing) A computer program that decides which group or label something belongs to, like spam or not spam. tree →
3. (language) In some languages like Mandarin, a word used between a number and a noun, like «a piece of» in English. tree →

In the lessons

In science lessons, scientists classify animals, and a classifier is a tool or key for sorting. In computing and AI lessons, a classifier learns from examples to label new things. In Mandarin, «ge» is a common classifier.

Examples

• The classifier sorted the emails into spam and not spam. tree →
• A classification key is a kind of classifier for animals. tree →
• In Mandarin, you need a classifier between the number and the noun. tree →
• The AI classifier recognised the cat in the photo. tree →
• «A loaf of bread» works like a classifier in English. tree →
• We trained a classifier on pictures of fruit. tree →

Note

From «classify». Countable. A classifier can be wrong; it makes guesses based on what it learned.