analogy

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French analogie or directly borrowed from Latin analogia (“ratio, proportion”),^[2][3][4][5] from Ancient Greek ἀναλογία (analogía, “proportion, equality of ratios”),^[2][4][6][5] from ἀνάλογος (análogos, “proportionate”).^[2][3][7] The Greek adjective is formed from ἀνά (aná, “upon, according to”) and λόγος (lógos, “ratio; word, reckoning”),^[4][8] from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to collect, gather”).^[4] The word was first mathematical, and Weekley notes that Plato already used it in a wider sense.^[8][5] In the French grammatical sense it is recorded from 1213, as the title of a lost Latin grammar by Julius Caesar,^[2] and Latin had it in Varro.^[5] Ælfric's grammar in Old English already mentions the Greek term, translating it as a comparison of like things.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Correspondence of quantities, proportion: before 1425, in an English translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie.^[2][3] Etymonline dates it to the early 15th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

From mathematical proportion the word spread in the 16th century to correspondence or agreement in general (Tyndale, 1533) and to similarity between things (Elyot, 1542).^[2][4][6] In grammar it named, from 1569, the regular patterns of a language, and since 1751 the remodelling of words after other words, as in false analogy.^[2] In philosophy and logic it became reasoning from parallel cases (1583, and in logic 1602),^[2][4] and since 1645 a comparison made to explain something.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as resemblance between things in some circumstances or effects.^[9] The mathematical sense was obsolete by the mid-19th century.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – proportion, agreement of ratios (obsolete by 1855).^[2]
• 1533 – correspondence, agreement, in Tyndale.^[2]
• 1542 – similarity, resemblance.^[2]
• 1569 – in grammar, regular patterns in a language.^[2]
• 1583 – resemblance as a basis for reasoning.^[2]
• 1602 – in logic, arguing from parallel cases.^[2][4]
• 1645 – a comparison made to explain something.^[2]
• 1751 – the remodelling of words after others, as in false analogy.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A comparison between two things made to explain or clarify one of them: The teacher drew an analogy between the heart and a pump.
2. Similarity or correspondence between things in some respects.
3. (logic) Reasoning that two things alike in some respects are alike in others as well.
4. (linguistics) The forming of words or inflections on the model of existing ones.
5. (biology) The likeness in function between organs of different origin, such as the wings of insects and birds.

Word family

• analogist
• analogize

Related words

• analogue
• analogous
• logic
• logos

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.