comparison

English

Etymology

From Middle English comparisoun, from Old French comparison, from Latin comparātiō, from comparātus, perfect passive participle of comparō.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /kəmˈpɛɹɪsən/, /kəmˈpæɹɪsən/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kəmˈpæɹɪsən/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

comparison (countable and uncountable, plural comparisons)

1. The act of comparing or the state or process of being compared.

   to bring a thing into comparison with another;  there is no comparison between them

   • 2013 July 20, “Old soldiers?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

     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.

2. An evaluation of the similarities and differences of one or more things relative to some other or each other.

   He made a careful comparison of the available products before buying anything.

   • 1841, Thomas Macaulay, Warren Hastings:

     As sharp legal practitioners, no class of human beings can bear a comparison with them.

   • 1850, Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord:

     The miracles of our Lord and those of the Old Testament afford many interesting points of comparison.

   • 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter II, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919, →OCLC:

     "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. […]"

3. With a negation, the state of being similar or alike.

   There really is no comparison between the performance of today's computers and those of a decade ago.

4. (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.

   In English, adjectives and adverbs have three forms when making a comparison: the plain form "hot", the comparative form "hotter", and the superlative form "hottest".

5. That to which, or with which, a thing is compared, as being equal or like; illustration; similitude.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Mark 4:30:

     Whereto shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what comparison shall we compare it?

6. (rhetoric) A simile.
7. (phrenology) The faculty of the reflective group which is supposed to perceive resemblances and contrasts.

Hypernyms

• (grammar): inflection

Derived terms

• beyond comparison
• by comparison
• comparing and contrasting
• comparison is the thief of joy
• comparisonitis
• comparison operator
• comparisons are odious
• comparison-shop
• comparison shop
• comparison shopper
• comparison shopping
• comparison-shopping
• comparisonwise
• degree of comparison
• in comparison
• intercomparison
• limit comparison test
• megalocomparison
• multicomparison
• no comparison
• pale in comparison
• recomparison
• standard of comparison
• suffer by comparison

Related terms

• comparable
• comparative
• comparator
• compare

Translations

act of comparing or the state of being compared

• Afrikaans: vergelyking
• Albanian: krahasim (sq) m
• Arabic: مُقَارَنَة f (muqārana), مُقَابَلَة f (muqābala), تَشْبِيه m (tašbīh), مُقَايَسَة f (muqāyasa)

  Gulf Arabic: مُقارَنة (mʊqarənə)

• Armenian: համեմատություն (hy) (hamematutʻyun)
• Azerbaijani: müqayisə (az)
• Belarusian: параўна́нне n (paraŭnánnje)
• Bengali: তুলনা (bn) (tulna)
• Bulgarian: сравне́ние (bg) n (sravnénie)
• Burmese: အနှိုင်း (my) (a.hnuing:)
• Catalan: comparació (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 比較 / 比较 (zh) (bǐjiào, bǐjiǎo)

• Czech: porovnání (cs) n
• Danish: sammenligning c
• Dutch: vergelijking (nl) f
• Esperanto: komparo (eo)
• Finnish: vertailu (fi)
• French: comparaison (fr) f
• Galician: comparación (gl) m, comparanza f
• Georgian: შედარება (šedareba)
• German: Vergleich (de) m, Komparation (de) f, Vergleichen (de) n, Vergleichung f
• Greek: σύγκριση (el) f (sýgkrisi)

  Ancient: σύγκρισις f (súnkrisis)

• Hebrew: השוואה \ הַשְׁוָאָה (he) f (hashva'á)
• Hindi: तुलना (hi) f (tulnā)
• Hungarian: összehasonlítás (hu), összevetés (hu)
• Ingrian: rinnoitus
• Italian: paragone (it) m, confronto (it) m, comparazione (it) f
• Japanese: 比較 (ja) (ひかく, hikaku)
• Kazakh: салыстыру (salystyru)
• Khmer: ពាក្យប្រៀប (piek priəp), ប្រៀប (km) (priəp)
• Korean: 비교(比較) (ko) (bigyo)
• Lao: ການປຽບທຽບ (kān pīap thīap)
• Latin: comparātiō f
• Latvian: salīdzināšana f, salīdzinājums (lv) m
• Lithuanian: lyginimas m
• Macedonian: споредба f (sporedba)
• Malayalam: താരതമ്യം (ml) (tāratamyaṁ)
• Maori: whakatairitenga
• Middle English: comparisoun
• Mongolian:

  Cyrillic: харьцуулалт (mn) (xarʹcuulalt)

• Norman: compathaison f (Jersey)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: sammenligning m or f

• Old English: wiþmetennes f
• Persian: مقایسه (fa) (moqâyese), تشبیه (fa) (tašbih)
• Polish: porównanie (pl) n
• Portuguese: comparação (pt) f
• Romanian: comparație (ro) f
• Russian: сравне́ние (ru) n (sravnénije) (state), сра́внивание (ru) n (srávnivanije) (process)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: поређење n (Bosnia, Serbia), у̏споредба f (Bosnia, Croatia)

  Roman: poređenje n (Bosnia, Serbia), ȕsporedba (sh) f (Bosnia, Croatia)

• Slovak: porovnanie n
• Slovene: primerjava f
• Spanish: comparación (es) f, comparanza (es) f (El Salvador)
• Swedish: jämförelse (sv) c
• Tajik: муқоиса (muqoyisa)
• Thai: การเปรียบเทียบ (th) (gaan-bprìiap-tîiap)
• Tibetan: འགྲན་བསྡུར ('gran bsdur), མཉམ་བསྡུར (mnyam bsdur), དཔེ་ཉེར་འཇལ (dpe nyer 'jal), དཔེ་ཟླ (dpe zla), ཚད་སྡུར (tshad sdur)
• Turkish: karşılaştırma (tr), mukayese (tr), salıştırma (tr)
• Ukrainian: порі́вняння n (porívnjannja)
• Urdu: مُوَازَنَہ m (mūāzana), اَنْدَازَہ m (andāza)
• Uzbek: muqoyasa (uz)
• Vietnamese: sự so sánh (vi)
• Walloon: rimetaedje (wa)

evaluation of the similarities and differences of two (or more) things

• Afrikaans: vergelyking
• Bulgarian: сравне́ние (bg) n (sravnénie)
• Catalan: comparació (ca) f
• Czech: porovnání (cs) n
• Dutch: vergelijking (nl) f
• Finnish: vertailu (fi)
• French: comparaison (fr) f
• German: Vergleich (de) m, Abgleich (de) m, Gegenüberstellung (de) f
• Greek: σύγκριση (el) f (sýgkrisi)

  Ancient: σύγκρισις f (súnkrisis)

• Hebrew: השוואה \ הַשְׁוָאָה (he) f (hashva'á)
• Hungarian: összehasonlítás (hu)
• Indonesian: komparasi (id), perbandingan (id)
• Ingrian: rinnoitus
• Irish: comparáid (ga) f
• Italian: comparazione (it) f
• Lithuanian: palyginimas (lt) m
• Macedonian: спо́редба f (spóredba)
• Malay: perbandingan (ms)
• Maori: whakaritenga
• Middle English: comparisoun
• Navajo: ałhąąh sinil
• Norman: compathaison f (Jersey)
• Old English: wiþmetennes f
• Polish: porównanie (pl) n
• Portuguese: comparação (pt) f
• Russian: сравне́ние (ru) n (sravnénije)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: поређење n (Bosnia, Serbia), у̏споредба f (Bosnia, Croatia)

  Roman: poređenje n (Bosnia, Serbia), ȕsporedba (sh) f (Bosnia, Croatia)

• Slovak: porovnanie n
• Slovene: primerjava f
• Spanish: comparación (es) f, comparanza (es) f (El Salvador)
• Swedish: jämförelse (sv) c
• Ukrainian: порі́вняння n (porívnjannja)
• Urdu: مُوَازَنَہ m (mūāzana), اَنْدَازَہ m (andāza)

state of being similar or alike

• Afrikaans: vergelykbaarheid
• Bulgarian: схо́дство (bg) n (shódstvo)
• Dutch: gelijkenis (nl) f
• Finnish: samanlaisuus (fi), samankaltaisuus (fi)
• French: comparaison (fr) f
• German: Abgleich (de) m, Vergleichbarkeit f
• Hebrew: השוואה \ הַשְׁוָאָה (he) f (hashva'á)
• Hungarian: hasonlóság (hu)
• Macedonian: сли́чност f (slíčnost)
• Middle English: comparisoun
• Norman: compathaison f (Jersey)
• Polish: porównanie (pl) n
• Portuguese: comparação (pt) f
• Russian: схо́дство (ru) n (sxódstvo)
• Spanish: comparación (es) f (rhetoric), semejanza (es) f, parangón (es) m, paragón m
• Swedish: likhet (sv) c

ability of adjectives and adverbs to form three degrees

• Afrikaans: trappe van vergelyking
• Czech: stupňování (cs) n
• Danish: gradbøjning (da) c
• Dutch: trappen van vergelijking (nl) pl or m
• Faroese: stigbending f
• Finnish: komparaatio (fi)
• French: degrés de comparaison (degrees of comparison)
• German: Komparation (de), Steigerung (de) f
• Hungarian: fokozás (hu)
• Icelandic: stigbreyting f
• Irish: comparáid (ga) f
• Middle English: comparisoun
• Polish: stopniowanie (pl) n, gradacja (pl) f, klimaks (pl) m
• Portuguese: comparação (pt) f
• Russian: сте́пени сравне́ния f pl (stépeni sravnénija) (degrees of comparison)
• Slovak: stupňovanie
• Swedish: komparation (sv) c
• Ukrainian: ступе́ні порі́вняння f pl (stupéni porívnjannja)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Indonesian: ^{(please verify)} perbandingan (id)
• Interlingua: ^{(please verify)} comparation
• Irish: ^{(please verify)} comórtas m
• Kurdish:

  Central Kurdish: ^{(please verify)} بەراورد (berawrid)

• Persian: ^{(please verify)} همسنجی (fa) (hamsanji)
• Telugu: ^{(please verify)} పోలిక (te) (pōlika)

Anagrams

• panic rooms

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin comparātiō.

Noun

comparison oblique singular, f (oblique plural comparisons, nominative singular comparison, nominative plural comparisons)

1. comparison (instance of comparing two or more things)

Descendants

• → English: comparison
• French: comparaison
• Norman: compathaison