the basic cognitive process of arranging into classes or categories
"When organizing her new toys, the toddler was still learning the sorting skill needed to group them by color and size."
grouping by class or kind or size
"The librarian spent the afternoon sorting the books into sections based on their genre, author, and publication year."
Ordering.
"The librarian spent the afternoon sorting the books on the shelves by genre."
present participle of sort
"The volunteers spent the afternoon sorting through the donations to separate clothes that were clean from those that needed washing."
In plain English: Sorting means arranging things into groups based on how they are alike or different.
"She spent the afternoon sorting through her old clothes to donate them."