If people or things are divided into categories, they are divided into groups according to their qualities and characteristics. There was one winner in each category.
Think of the game show "Jeopardy!," and how each column is a different category of questions — like "Literary Characters" or "Potent Potables." The noun category has the sense of ordering or sorting. In Biology, the science of taxonomy is all about categorizing all living organisms.
Definition of category noun in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more.
cat•e•go•ry /ˈkætɪˌgɔri/ n. [countable], pl. -ries. any group or division in a system of classification: several categories of students: part-time, full-time, degree, and nondegree.
