Sorteret

Sorteret is a Danish term that functions as the past participle and an adjective of the verb sortere, meaning to sort, classify, or separate into categories. It is used to describe items that have undergone sorting, such as waste, mail, data, or materials. The form sorteret corresponds to the past participle; in compound tenses it is combined with auxiliary verbs, for example “Affaldet er sorteret” (the waste has been sorted) or “Vi har sorteret posten” (we have sorted the mail). When used attributively, sorteret modifies a noun to indicate that sorting has taken place, as in “sorteret affald” or “sorteret materiale.”

In Danish, adjectives derived from participles typically agree with number and definiteness, so you may see forms like “sorteret materiale” (singular) and “sorterede materialer” (plural). The word is formed with the standard Danish past participle suffix -et, a common pattern for weak verbs such as sortere.

Sorteret is commonly encountered in contexts related to waste management, data processing, logistics, and records handling, where items are explicitly described as having passed through a sorting step. It can also appear in more general prose to indicate that a selection or categorization task has been completed.

See also: sortere, sortering, affaldssortering. Etymology: from the verb sortere, with the typical Danish past participle formation.