analogous

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin analogus (“proportionate; in post-classical Latin also conformable to analogy”), with the English suffix -ous,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Ancient Greek ἀνάλογος (análogos, “proportionate, according to due proportion”),^[3][7][4][2] from a phrase meaning "according to due ratio",^[8] formed from ἀνά (aná, “up, upon; throughout, according to”) and λόγος (lógos, “ratio, proportion; word, reckoning”).^[3][8][7][4] The American Heritage Dictionary relates the Greek noun to Proto-Indo-European *leg-.^[4] Barnhart allows that the word may have come through Middle French analogue,^[8] which the OED dates to 1503 and only compares, with analogo (before 1565).^[2] Its English equivalent is analogue with -ous.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corresponding to something, comparable, similar: 1644, in a sermon by Stephen Marshall on the baptism of infants.^[2] Merriam-Webster gives 1641 as the first known use,^[5] Barnhart 1646,^[9][8] and Etymonline the 1640s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The biological sense, of parts that are alike in form or function, is almost as old as the general one: the OED first finds it in 1646, in Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica.^[2][1] Only in the mid-19th century did it come to mean, in contrast with homologous, alike in function though of different evolutionary origin.^[1][2] A third sense, based on or involving analogy, the meaning of analogical, is recorded from 1653, in Zachary Coke's Art of Logick, and is now rare and archaic.^[2][6] Johnson (1755) defined it as having analogy, bearing some resemblance or proportion, having something parallel.^[10] In logic, a term was called analogous when its one meaning applied equally well to more than one object, as the leg of a table and of an animal (Fleming, The Vocabulary of Philosophy, 1858).^[3] In linguistics it is used of a form made by analogy.^[11]

Timeline

• 1644 – corresponding, comparable, similar.^[2] Merriam-Webster dates the word to 1641.^[5]
• 1646 – zoology and botany, similar in form or function.^[2]
• 1653 – based on or involving analogy (now rare).^[2]
• mid-19th century – of organs, alike in function but different in origin, as opposed to homologous.^[1]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Similar or corresponding in some respect, so that a comparison can be drawn: The role of a conductor is analogous to that of a coach.^[11][5][2]
2. (biology) Of organs or parts, alike in function but different in evolutionary origin, as the wings of a bat and of a butterfly; compare homologous.^[11][2]
3. (linguistics) Formed by analogy.^[11]
4. (archaic) Based on or involving analogy; analogical.^[2][6]

Word family

• analogously
• analogousness
• unanalogous

Related words

• analog
• analogue
• analogical
• analogy
• logic
• logos

Usage notes

It is followed by to or with.^[3][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins