A class is a category of items that share one or more common traits serving as criteria to identify the items belonging to the class. These properties need not be explicitly formulated in logical terms, but may be described in a text (here called a scope note) that refers to a common conceptualisation of domain experts. The sum of these traits is called the intension of the class. A class may be the domain or range of none, one or more properties formally defined in a model. The formally defined properties need not be part of the intension of their domains or ranges: such properties are optional. An item that belongs to a class is called an instance of this class. A class is associated with an open set of real life instances, known as the extension of the class. Here “open” is used in the sense that it is generally beyond our capabilities to know all instances of a class in the world and indeed that the future may bring new instances about at any time (Open World). Therefore a class cannot be defined by enumerating its instances. A class plays a role analogous to a grammatical noun, and can be completely defined without reference to any other construct (unlike properties, which must have an unambiguously defined domain and range). In some contexts, the terms individual class, entity or node are used synonymously with class.
For example:
Person is a class. To be a Person may actually be determined by DNA characteristics, but we all know what a Person is. A Person may have the property of being a member of a Group, but it is not necessary to be member of a Group in order to be a Person. We shall never know all Persons of the past. There will be more Persons in the future.