Analogy

How to spell analogy

7 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce analogy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does analogy mean?

1. nounA comparison between two things that are alike in some way, used to explain an idea or argue a point.

Analogy in a sentence

• The teacher used an analogy about plumbing to explain how electrical current flows.

• His analogy between running a household and managing a small business made the budget easier to grasp.

Where does analogy come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek analogia, which originally meant 'proportion' or 'correspondence between things', literally a matching of ratios. It was built from ana, meaning 'according to' or 'in proportion', and logos, a richly layered word meaning 'ratio', 'reason', or 'word'. Greek mathematicians used analogia in a precise numerical sense, describing how one pair of quantities relates in the same way as another pair. Latin took the term as analogia, and English received it through French analogie in the sixteenth century, gradually broadening it from strict mathematical proportion to any resemblance that lets us reason from one thing to another. The logos root that gives the word its tricky middle is the same element that ends up in 'logic', 'dialogue', and the '-logy' of countless sciences, which is a useful reminder that the troublesome part is spelled 'log' and not 'lodge'.

How the word is built

• ana- (according to, in proportion)
• log (logos: ratio, reason, word)
• -y (noun suffix)