analogy

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noun anal·o·gy \ ə-ˈna-lə-jē \

Definition of analogy

plural analogies

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

2 a :resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike :similarity

b :comparison based on such resemblance

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

See analogy defined for English-language learners

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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

And, contrary to Godwin’s Law, the analogy has its merits.

— eric levitz, Daily Intelligencer, "‘Sheriff Joe’ and Everyday American Authoritarianism," 30 Aug. 2017
Of all the analogies that come up in discussing blockchains, perhaps the most frequently cited is the design, in the 1970s, of TCP/IP—the watershed networking protocol that enabled computers to talk to one another and swap data and info.

— robert hackett, Fortune, "Why Big Business Is Racing to Build Blockchains," 22 Aug. 2017
One of Handy’s strengths is that his brain tends toward unlikely analogies.

— jennifer senior, New York Times, "A Personal, Breezy Tour of Classic Children’s Books," 16 Aug. 2017
Which is kind of the perfect analogy for how Saturday Night Live feels about the Trump Administration as a whole.

— matt miller, Esquire, "Bill Hader Had One Shot at the Mooch. And He Nailed It.," 11 Aug. 2017
The chemical ones, meanwhile, can hold their potential, as Marmur explains with a gas tank analogy.

— laura regensdorf, Vogue, "How to Dial Up Your Sunscreen Game—Including One Game-Changing Gadget," 11 Aug. 2017
On Thursday, the first lady used a biblical analogy of a son who organized a feast to crown himself because his father was close to death.

— farai mutsaka, The Seattle Times, "Wife of Zimbabwe’s leader tells Mugabe to name successor," 27 July 2017
Critics over the years have said that the movie's themes are analogies about race, the Cold War and animal rights.

— michael heaton, cleveland.com, "Going bananas for 'Planet of the Apes' franchise: Minister of Culture," 26 July 2017
But this isn’t really about drawing a one-to-one analogy between what Clinton did and what Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., did.

— philip bump, Washington Post, "When Trump isn’t running against Clinton, even voters in Trumpland are less supportive," 17 July 2017

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

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.