Analogy

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /əˈnæləd͡ʒi/

Definitions

1. A comparison between two things that highlights their similarities to explain or clarify a concept
2. A relationship established between two different things that emphasizes their common features in order to elaborate on or simplify an idea
3. A method of illustrating the similarities between two disparate entities to help in understanding or explaining a concept

Etymology: Greek mathematicians gave "analogy" its sharpest meaning. In ancient Greek, "analogia" meant proportion, a fixed relationship between quantities, and the word was built from "ana-", meaning "up" or "according to", and "logos", meaning speech, reckoning or ratio. A proportion was a kind of reckoning that matched one pair of things to another, so 2 is to 4 as 3 is to 6. That mathematical sense of matching relationships is the seed of the word's later use for comparing things that are otherwise unlike. The Latin "analogia" carried the same idea of proportion into the Roman world, and English borrowed the word from Latin. Its earliest English sense stayed close to the Greek mathematical one, referring to a correspondence of ratios. The leap from numbers to everyday reasoning, where one thing is explained by likeness to another, followed naturally: if two pairs share a relationship, a comparison between them can illuminate both.

Synonyms: similarity, comparison, correlation, metaphor, equivalence

Antonyms: difference, disparity