comparable

Pluralcomparables

1. 1
   adjective

   Similar to something else; of much the same kind or degree.

   The two cities offer comparable job opportunities for young graduates.

   Her new salary is comparable to what she earned at her previous company.

   Similarsimilar, equivalent, analogous, akin, commensurate

   Oppositedifferent, dissimilar, disparate, unequal

2. 2
   adjective

   Capable of being compared with something else, so the two can be measured or judged side by side.

   The figures are comparable across regions because the same survey method was used everywhere.

   Unless the units match, the measurements are not comparable.

   Note

   Here the question is whether two things can share a scale at all, not whether they match. The construction usually names the scale and then the partner: comparable in size to a bus, comparable in dimensions to another firebox. The word came through Middle French from Latin comparābilis, but it also reads as compare plus -able, which is exactly this sense. The "similar" meaning grew from it.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   An item or case selected as suitable for comparison with another.

   Appraisers looked for a recent comparable in the same neighborhood before valuing the home.

   Each comparable must share key features with the property being assessed.

   Note

   An appraiser's noun, made from the adjective: comparables are recent sales of similar properties used to price a house. In Fred A. Bernstein's 2009 report on Catskill home prices, nearby sales had dried up and the appraiser could find no comparables at all. It is an ordinary countable noun, so you can speak of one comparable or several comparables.

4. 4
   adjective

   Of an adjective or adverb, capable of forming comparative and superlative degrees.

   In English, 'happy' is comparable, yielding 'happier' and 'happiest.'

   Grammarians debate whether absolute adjectives like 'perfect' are truly comparable.

   Similargradable

   Oppositeungradable, uncomparable

   Note

   Grammarians also call such words gradable. Big qualifies because it yields bigger and biggest. Unique does not, because a thing cannot be more or less one of a kind. Degrees can also be built with more and most, and the word itself shows how: more comparable, most comparable. Comparable is, fittingly, comparable.

5. 5
   adjective

   Of two elements in a partially ordered set, related by the order so that one is less than or equal to the other.

   In a partial order, two elements are comparable if one precedes or equals the other.

   The sets {1,2} and {2,3} are not comparable, since neither is a subset of the other.

   Oppositeincomparable

   Note

   Order theorists use the word for a pair that the order actually relates. Under divisibility, six and forty-two are comparable because six divides forty-two. Six and nine are not, since neither divides the other. Such a pair is called incomparable, and partial orders are precisely the ones that allow it. The everyday intuition that any two numbers can be ranked does not carry over.

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