different between comparison vs parallelism

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French comparison, from Latin compar?ti?, from compar?tus, perfect passive participle of compar?.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /k?m?p???s?n/, /k?m?pæ??s?n/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /k?m?pæ??s?n/

Noun

comparison (countable and uncountable, plural comparisons)

1. The act of comparing or the state or process of being compared.
2. An evaluation of the similarities and differences of one or more things relative to some other or each other.
   • 1841, Thomas Macaulay, Warren Hastings

     As sharp legal practitioners, no class of human beings can bear a comparison with them.

   • 1850, Richard Chenevix Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord

     The miracles of our Lord and those of the Old Testament afford many interesting points of comparison.

   • "I don't want to spoil any comparison you are going to make," said Jim, "but I was at Winchester and New College." ¶ "That will do," said Mackenzie. "I was dragged up at the workhouse school till I was twelve. […]"

3. With a negation, the state of being similar or alike.

4. (grammar) A feature in the morphology or syntax of some languages whereby adjectives and adverbs are inflected to indicate the relative degree of the property they define exhibited by the word or phrase they modify or describe.

5. That to which, or with which, a thing is compared, as being equal or like; illustration; similitude.
6. (rhetoric) A simile.
7. (phrenology) The faculty of the reflective group which is supposed to perceive resemblances and contrasts.

Related terms

Translations

Anagrams

• panic rooms

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin compar?ti?.

Noun

comparison f (oblique plural comparisons, nominative singular comparison, nominative plural comparisons)

1. comparison (instance of comparing two or more things)

Descendants

• ? English: comparison
• French: comparaison
• Norman: compathaison

References

English

Etymology

From parallel +? -ism and from Late Latin parallelismus.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?pa??l?l?z(?)m/

Noun

parallelism (countable and uncountable, plural parallelisms)

1. The state or condition of being parallel; agreement in direction, tendency, or character.
2. The state of being in agreement or similarity; resemblance, correspondence, analogy.
   • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.29:

     Plutarch (c. AD 46-120), in his Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, traced a parallelism between the most eminent men of the two countries.

3. A parallel position; the relation of parallels.
4. (rhetoric, grammar) The juxtaposition of two or more identical or equivalent syntactic constructions, especially those expressing the same sentiment with slight modifications, introduced for rhetorical effect.
5. (philosophy) The doctrine that matter and mind do not causally interact but that physiological events in the brain or body nonetheless occur simultaneously with matching events in the mind.
6. (law) In antitrust law, the practice of competitors of raising prices by roughly the same amount at roughly the same time, without engaging in a formal agreement to do so.
7. (biology) Similarity of features between two species resulting from their having taken similar evolutionary paths following their initial divergence from a common ancestor.
8. (computing) The use of parallel methods in hardware or software, so that several tasks can be performed at the same time.

Related terms

• parallelist
• parallelistic

Translations

References

• parallelism in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• parallelism in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• Dictionary of Philosophy, Dagobert D. Runes (ed.), Philosophical Library, 1962. See: "Parallelism" by J. J. Rolbiecki, p. 225.