analogy: Meaning and Definition of

a•nal•o•gy

Pronunciation: (u-nal'u-jē), [key]
— pl. -gies.
  1. a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based: the analogy between the heart and a pump.
  2. similarity or comparability: I see no analogy between your problem and mine.
  3. an analogous relationship.
    1. the process by which words or phrases are created or re-formed according to existing patterns in the language, as when shoon was re-formed as shoes, when -ize is added to nouns like winter to form verbs, or when a child says foots for feet.
    2. a form resulting from such a process.
  4. a form of reasoning in which one thing is inferred to be similar to another thing in a certain respect, on the basis of the known similarity between the things in other respects.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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