analogy

noun anal·o·gy \ ə-ˈna-lə-jē \

|Updated on: 9 Jul 2018

Tip: Synonym Guide

Examples: analogy in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Digging Into the Most Common Meaning of analogy

Definition of analogy

plural analogies

1 a : a comparison of two otherwise unlike things based on resemblance of a particular aspect

b : resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike : similarity

2 : inference that if two or more things agree with one another in some respects they will probably agree in others

3 : correspondence between the members of pairs or sets of linguistic forms that serves as a basis for the creation of another form

4 : correspondence in function between anatomical parts of different structure and origin — compare homology

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Examples of analogy in a Sentence

He does, though, suffer from the occupational deformation of international relations specialists: an enthusiasm for ransacking the past in search of precedents, analogies, patterns, and cycles that might explain the present and forecast the future. —Tony Judt, New York Book Review, 10 Apr. 2003
People who do this call themselves "white-hat" hackers—good people who show other people their vulnerabilities. Take the following analogy: I've designed a great new lock pick, and I'm going to give this great new gadget away to show everyone that the typical door lock is ineffective against my new pick. —John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine, 4 Apr. 2000
It has often been said that movie stars are the royalty of America. (The better analogy, really, is that the royals are the movie stars of Britain.) —Neal Gabler, Life: The Movie, 1998
Parts of the far-infrared sky look like colonies of spiders gone mad. The fine structure seen there is called cirrus, by analogy with filamentary clouds on Earth. —Virginia Trimble et al., Sky & Telescope, January 1995

Recent Examples of analogy from the Web

But a better analogy in this case might be our use of antibiotics in health care and agriculture, and the resulting rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

— WSJ, "GMOs Are Safe, As Far as We Can Tell Today," 29 June 2018
Robert Howell, an astronomer at the University of Wyoming, used an analogy of an oven to better explain why this is.

— madeline farber, Fox News, "A guide to summer solstice, from Stonehenge to the earth's tilt," 21 June 2018
The Nazi analogy insults the memory of the millions who perished under Adolf Hitler.

— jonathan zimmerman, SFChronicle.com, "Trump’s critics must resist urge to sink to his rhetoric," 22 June 2018
Democrats and other detractors have gone even further in their language, some even using Nazi analogies.

— howard kurtz, Fox News, "Trump losing GOP and media allies in outcry over separating immigrant families," 19 June 2018
The court also rejected an analogy to the famous one-person-one-vote decisions of the 1960s.

— barry c. burden, Washington Post, "The Supreme Court decided not to decide Wisconsin’s gerrymandering case. But here’s why it will be back.," 19 June 2018
The ever-churning arcs of soap operas also provide Smith yet another analogy for his job.

— vinson cunningham, The New Yorker, "Stephen A. Smith Won’t Stop Talking," 16 June 2018
Hyperbolic analogies aside, Google’s AI techniques are becoming more powerful and more important to its business.

— The Economist, "Google runs into more flak on artificial intelligence," 14 June 2018
This desire to beat Dallas and MLS goes beyond the little brother-big brother analogy that’s often thrown in your faces, primarily because San Antonio is a bigger city than Dallas, albeit one with a second-division soccer team.

— San Antonio Express-News, "Suds and duds: SAFC loses Open Cup match," 6 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'analogy.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Digging Into the Most Common Meaning of analogy

In its most common use, analogy has to do with comparison of things based on those things being alike in some way. For example, one can make or draw an analogy between the seasons of the year and the stages of life. People also reason by way of analogy, asserting, for example, that abandoning a project is like leaving a house partway built. Although an analogy can be summarized quickly, as in these examples, an analogy actually encompasses the comparison or inference itself, and is therefore different from figures of speech, like metaphors and similes, which are forms of expression.

Some tests ask you to identify analogies, finding the second of a pair that has the same relationship as a completed pair. Analogy tests often look like this:

ice : cold :: steel : ____

a. hard b. loud c. fresh d. small

Because the relationship between ice and cold is that coldness is a quality of ice, the word that goes with steel is hard, since hardness is a quality of steel.

The word analogy (which comes from analogous) traces back by way of Latin to a Greek word meaning "proportionate." That word has a root in the Greek word logos, meaning "reason."

Origin and Etymology of analogy

see analogous

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 15th century

in the meaning defined at sense 2

See Words from the same year

Synonym Discussion of analogy

likeness, similarity, resemblance, similitude, analogy mean agreement or correspondence in details. likeness implies a closer correspondence than similarity which often implies that things are merely somewhat alike.