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n. pl. a·nal·o·gies 1. a. A similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar: sees an analogy between viral infection and the spread of ideas. b. A comparison based on such similarity: made an analogy between love and a fever. 2. Biology Correspondence in function or position between organs of dissimilar evolutionary origin or structure. 3. A form of reasoning based on the assumption that if two things are known to be alike in some respects, then they are probably alike in other respects. 4. Linguistics The process by which words or morphemes are re-formed or created on the model of existing grammatical patterns in a language, often leading to greater regularity in paradigms, as evidenced by helped replacing holp and holpen as the past tense and past participle of help on the model of verbs such as yelp, yelped, yelped. [Middle English analogie, from Old French, from Latin analogia, from Greek analogiā, from analogos, proportionate; see ANALOGOUS.] |
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