The AI-powered English dictionary
countable and uncountable, plural comparisons
The act of comparing or the state or process of being compared. quotations examples
Whether modern, industrial man is less or more warlike than his hunter-gatherer ancestors is impossible to determine. The machine gun is so much more lethal than the bow and arrow that comparisons are meaningless.
2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845
An evaluation of the similarities and differences of one or more things relative to some other or each other. quotations examples
As sharp legal practitioners, no class of human beings can bear a comparison with them.
1841, Thomas Macaulay, Warren Hastings
The miracles of our Lord and those of the Old Testament afford many interesting points of comparison.
1850, Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord
"I don't want to spoil any comparison you are going to make," said Jim, "but I was at Winchester and New College." ¶ "That will do," said Mackenzie. "I was dragged up at the workhouse school till I was twelve. […]"
1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter II, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919
With a negation, the state of being similar or alike. examples
(grammar) A feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe. examples
That to which, or with which, a thing is compared, as being equal or like; illustration; similitude. quotations examples
Whereto shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what comparison shall we compare it?
1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Mark 4:30
(rhetoric) A simile. examples
(phrenology) The faculty of the reflective group which is supposed to perceive resemblances and contrasts.