Etymology

simile

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Today it means: A figure of speech in which one thing is explicitly compared to another, using e.g. like or as. Full definition →

Latin simile
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The story

  1. Latin · borrowed fromsimile“comparison, likeness, parallel”
  2. English todaysimile

From Latin simile (“comparison, likeness, parallel”) (first attested 1393), originally from simile, neuter form of similis (“like, similar, resembling”). Compare English similar.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.