analogy
(əˈnælədʒɪ)
Also 6 -gye, 6–7 -gie, (7 annalogy).
[ad. L. analogia, a. Gr. ἀναλογία equality of ratios, proportion (orig. a term of mathematics, but already with transf. sense in Plato), f. ἀνάλογ-ος adj.: see analogon. Cf. mod.Fr. analogie.]
1. Math. Proportion; agreement of ratios.
| 1557 Recorde Whetst. C ij, If any one proportion be continued in more then 2 nombers, there maie be then a conference also of these proportions..that conference or comparison is named Analogie. 1570 Billingsley Euclid v. Introd. 126 This booke..entreateth of proportion and Analogie, or proportionalitie. 1660 Barrow Euclid v. def. 4 That which is here termed Proportion is more rightly called Proportionality or Analogy. 1742 Bailey, Analogy [in the Mathematicks] the Comparison of several Ratio's of Quantities or Numbers one to another. 1855 H. Spencer Psychol. (1872) II. vi. viii. 112 An analogy is ‘an agreement or likeness between’ two ratios in respect of the quantitative contrast between each antecedent and its consequent. |
† 2. Hence, Due proportion; correspondence or adaptation of one thing to another. Obs.
| 1577 tr. Bullinger's Decades 1018 Analogie is an aptnes, proportion and a certaine conuenance of the signe to y⊇ thing signified. a 1626 Bp. Andrewes Serm. (1856) I. 429 If there be an analogy of faith, so is there of hearing also. 1684 tr. Bonet's Merc. Compit. vi. 204 This bastard Pleurisie..arose from a pituitous matter gathered in the Bloud through Analogy with Winter. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. I. 143 Some philosophers have perceived so much analogy to man in the formation of the ocean, that they have not hesitated to assert its being made for him alone. |
3. Equivalency or likeness of relations; ‘resemblance of things with regard to some circumstances or effects’ (J.); ‘resemblance of relations’ (Whately); a name for the fact, that, the relation borne to any object by some attribute or circumstance, corresponds to the relation existing between another object and some attribute or circumstance pertaining to it. Const. to, with, between.
This is an extension of the general idea of proportion from quantity to relation generally, and is often expressed proportionally, as when we say ‘Knowledge is to the mind, what light is to the eye.’ The general recognition of this analogy makes light, or enlightenment, or illumination, an analogical word for knowledge.
| 1550 Veron Godly Sayings (1846) 28 Marke well, good reader, the analogye of the old and new sacramentes. 1605 Bacon Adv. Learn. ii. viii. §3 (1873) 122 Which three parts active [experimental, philosophical, magical] have a correspondence and analogy with the three parts speculative. 1658 Phillips, Analogy, Like Reason, Relation, Proportion, Agreement, Correspondency. 1675 Baxter Cath. Theol. ii. i. 13 We can think no otherwise of the Divine Conceptions and Volitions, but as we are led by the analogy of humane acts. 1765 Tucker Lt. Nat. II. 466 Analogy is the similitude or correspondence of particulars between things. 1785 Reid Intell. Powers 65 Some conceived analogy between body and mind. 1833 Brewster Nat. Magic viii. 195 There is still one property of sound, which has its analogy also in light. 1860 Tyndall Glac. ii. 10. 285 The analogy between a river and a glacier moving through a sinuous valley is therefore complete. 1879 Lubbock Sci. Lect. iv. 137 There seem to be three principal types [of ants] offering a curious analogy to the three great phases: the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural stages, in the history of human development. |
4. more vaguely, Agreement between things, similarity.
| 1605 Timme Quersit. i. iv. 18 A great analogie or conuenience is found in this contrarietie of beginnings. a 1682 Sir T. Browne Tracts 45 Who from some analogy of name conceive the ægyptian Pyramids to have been built for granaries. 1712 Addison Spect. No. 416 ¶1 Places, Persons, or Actions in general which bear a Resemblance, or at least some remote Analogy, with what we find represented. 1806 Syd. Smith Elem. Mor. Phil. (1850) 359 There is a certain analogy to this in drunkenness. 1839 Murchison Silur. Syst. i. xxvii. 358 The trilobites..bear so strong an analogy to those described by M. Brongniart. |
† 5. As a figure of speech: The statement of an analogy, a simile or similitude. Obs.
| a 1536 Tindale Wks. 473 (R.) Fetching his analogie and similitude at the naturall bodie. 1570 Dee Math. Præf. 21 Parables and Analogies of whose natures, etc. 1651 Hobbes Leviath. iii. xxxiv. 213 According to the same Analogy, the Dove, and the Fiery Tongues..might also be called Angels. |
6. = analogue.
| 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 158 Many have nostrills which have no lungs, as fishes, but none have lungs or respiration, which have not some shew, or some analogy of nostrills. 1661 in Heath Grocers' Comp. (1869) 486 Man..is the worlds analogy, And hath with it a Co-existency. 1837 Lytton Athens I. 296 The child is the analogy of a people yet in childhood. 1877 W. Lytteil Landm. i. iii. 28 We readily find many analogies to such a name as Kairguin. |
7. Logic. a. Resemblance of relations or attributes forming a ground of reasoning. b. The process of reasoning from parallel cases; presumptive reasoning based upon the assumption that if things have some similar attributes, their other attributes will be similar.
| 1602 in Thynne's Animadv. Pref. 107 By true Annalogie I rightly find. 1692 Bentley Boyle Lect. iv. 127 He hath made out from Example and Analogy. 1736 Butler Anal. Introd. 4 Analogy is of weight..towards determining our Judgment. 1832 J. Austin Jurispr. (1879) II. 1040 Analogy denotes an inference or a reasoning or argumentation, whereof an analogy of objects is mainly the cause or ground. 1843 Mill Logic iii. xx. §1 The word Analogy as the name of a mode of reasoning is generally taken for some kind of argument supposed to be of an inductive nature but not amounting to a complete induction. 1853 Robertson Serm. Ser. iv. xxx. (1863) 231 Analogy is probability from a parallel case. We assume that the same law which operates in the one case will in another, if there be a resemblance between the relations of the things compared. 1871 C. Davies Metric Syst. iii. 176 The analogy of all experience warrants the conjecture. 1875 Stubbs Const. Hist. I. i. 11 Analogy, however, is not proof, but illustration. |
8. Language. Similarity of formative or constructive processes; imitation of the inflexions, derivatives, or constructions of existing words, in forming inflexions, derivatives, or constructions of other words, without the intervention of the formative steps through which these at first arose.
Thus the new inflexion bake, baked, baked (instead of the historical bake, book, baken) is due to analogy with such words as rake, raked, raked, etc. When the formative steps are not only absent, but could not have been present, the process is often called False Analogy; as when starvation was formed to bear the same relation to starve, that vexation does to vex. Vexation being historically due to the existence of vexāt- the ppl. stem of a L. vb. vexā-re, whence through Fr. vexe-r we have vex, there could be no such formative steps in the case of the Teut. vb. starve. But as all mere analogy, even that of vex-es, vex-ed, vex-ing, is in this sense ‘false,’ the term form-association is now commonly used of an analogical process which considers the mere forms of existing words, apart from their history.
| 1659 B. Walton Consid. Considered 264 There [is]..a particular Grammar analogy in each particular tongue, before it be reduced into rules. 1706 Phillips, Analogy..in Grammar, the Declining of a Noun, or Conjugating of a Verb, according to its Rule or Standard. 1747 Johnson Plan of Dict. Wks. 1787 IX. 178 To our language may be with great justness applied the observation of Quintilian, that speech was not formed by an analogy sent from heaven. 1751 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Analogy, In matters of language, we say, new words are formed by Analogy. 1874 Morris Hist. Eng. Gram. 95 The th in farther has crept in from false analogy with further. 1878 Sweet in Trans. Philol. Soc. (1877–9) 391 Paul goes on to protest against the epithet ‘false’ analogy, remarking that it is really ‘correct,’ working as it does with unerring psychological instinct. |
9. Nat. Hist. Resemblance of form or function between organs which are essentially different (in different species), as the analogy between the tail of a fish and that of the whale, the wing of a bat and that of a bird, the tendril of the pea and that of the vine.
| 1814 Sir H. Davy Agric. Chem. 62 Linnæus, whose lively imagination was continually employed in endeavours to discover analogies between the animal and vegetable systems, conceived ‘that the pith performed for the plant the same functions as the brain and nerves in animated beings.’ 1854 Woodward Man. Mollusca 55 Resemblances of form and habits without agreement of structure..are termed relations of..analogy. 1857 Berkeley Cryptog. Bot. §25 We understand by analogy those cases in which organs have identity of function, but not identity of essence or origin. 1870 Hooker Stud. Flora 13 Nymphæaceæ..Affinities. With Papaveraceæ, but not close; presents analogies with Hydrocharideæ and Villarsia. |