compare
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /kəmˈpɛɚ/
ipa: [kəmˈpɛɚ]
ipa: [kəmˈpɛɹ]
ipa: [kəmˈpeɚ]
ipa: [kəmˈpeɹ]
ipa: /kəmˈpɛə/
ipa: [kəmˈpɛː]
ipa: [kəmˈpɛə]
ipa: [kəmˈpeə]
rhymes: -ɛə(ɹ)
Forms: form: compares
form: comparing
form: compared
form: compared
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: compare
form: compare
form: compared
form: compare
form: comparest
form: compared
form: comparedst
form: compares
form: compareth
form: compared
form: compare
form: compared
form: compare
form: compared
form: compare
form: -
form: comparing
form: compared
form: cp.
form: comp.
form: cmp
Etymology: From Middle English comparen, from Old French comparer, from Latin comparare (“to prepare, procure”), from compar (“like or equal to another”), from com- + par (“equal”). Displaced native Old English metan (“to compare,” also “to measure”).
Senses: examples: text: Compare the tiger's coloration with that of the zebra.
text: You can't compare my problems and yours.
text: Sophia broke down here. Even at this moment she was subconsciously comparing her rendering of the part of the forlorn bride with Miss Marie Lohr's.
ref: 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 6, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
text: Bats host many high-profile viruses that can infect humans, including severe acute respiratory syndrome and Ebola. A recent study explored the ecological variables that may contribute to bats’ propensity to harbor such zoonotic diseases by comparing them with another order of common reservoir hosts: rodents.
ref: 2013 May-June, Katie L. Burke, “In the News”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 193:
synonyms: set against
glosses: To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things ["to compare X with Y"]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it similar to Y or different from Y.
examples: text: Astronomers have compared comets to dirty snowballs.
text: Solon compared the people unto the sea, and orators and counsellors to the winds; for that the sea would be calm and quiet if the winds did not trouble it.
ref: 1625, Francis [Bacon], Apophthegmes New and Old. […], London: […] Hanna Barret, and Richard Whittaker, […], →OCLC:
text: And wordy attacks against slavery drew sneers from observers which were not altogether undeserved. The authors were compared to doctors who offered to a patient nothing more than invectives against the disease which consumed him.
ref: 1963, C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, 2nd Revised edition, page 24:
synonyms: liken
glosses: To declare two things to be similar in some respect ["to compare X to Y"].
examples: text: We compare "good" as "good", "better", "best".
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
glosses: To form the three degrees of comparison of (an adjective).
examples: text: A sapling and a fully-grown oak tree do not compare.
text: Shall pack-horses[…]compare with Caesar's?
ref: c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:
glosses: To be similar (often used in the negative).
examples: text: To fill his bags, and richesse to compare.
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 28:
glosses: To get; to obtain.
Derived terms: comparable
compare and contrast
compare and despair
compare apples to apples
compare apples with apples
comparee
compare notes
comparingly
incompared
intercompare
miscompare
recompare
uncompared
Related terms: comparand
comparandum
comparative
comparison
cf