analogy

plural analogies

1. countableuncountableA relationship of resemblance or equivalence between two situations, people, or objects, especially when used as a basis for explanation or extrapolation.

   A kid living on the street is a bit like — and please pardon the analogy here — a weed.

   2002, Harlan Coben, Gone for Good, →ISBN, page 75

   4 more examples

   Yet the systole and diastole of the heart are not without their analogy in the ebb and flow of love.

   1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, chapter 6, in Essays: First Series

   Is there any analogy, in certain constitutions, between keeping an umbrella up, and keeping the spirits up?

   1869, Charles Dickens, chapter 18, in The Uncommercial Traveller

   The old analogy likening the human mind to an imperfect mirror, which modifies the images it reflects, occurred more than once to Odo.

   1901, Edith Wharton, chapter 12, in The Valley of Decision

   Perhaps the easiest way to think of it is in terms of a simple analogy: hardware is to software as a television set is to the shows that appear on it.

   1983 January 3, “How to Write Programs”, in Time

2. countableuncountablegeometryThe proportion or the equality of ratios.
3. countableuncountablegrammarThe correspondence of a word or phrase with the genius of a language, as learned from the manner in which its words and phrases are ordinarily formed; similarity of derivative or inflectional processes.