A multi-class discriminating device for judging to which class a feature represented by data falls. The device has a first unit for generating plural first hierarchical discriminating devices for discriminating one from N, and a second unit for combining score values output respectively from the plural first hierarchical discriminating devices to generate a second hierarchical feature vector and for entering the second hierarchical feature vector to generate plural second hierarchical discriminating devices for discriminating one from N. When data is entered, the plural first hierarchical discriminating devices output score values, and these score values are combined together to generate the second hierarchical feature vector. When the second hierarchical feature vector is entered, the second hierarchical discriminating device which outputs the maximum score value is selected. The class corresponding to the selected second hierarchical discriminating device is discriminated as the class, into which the feature represented by the entered data falls.