comparison

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act of comparing or the process of being compared.
2. n. A statement or estimate of similarities and differences.
3. n. The quality of being similar or equivalent; likeness: no comparison between the two books.
4. n. Grammar The modification or inflection of an adjective or adverb to denote the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees, as in English, along with the equative degree in certain other languages, such as Irish Gaelic.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of comparing; transition of thought or observation from one object to another, for the discovery of their likeness or unlikeness; the study or investigation of relations.
2. n. An act of comparing; a comparative estimate or statement; a consideration of likeness or difference in regard to particular persons or things.
3. n. Comparable state, condition, or character; any relation of similitude or resemblance; capability of being compared; power of comparing: as, the one is so much superior to the other that there is no comparison between them.
4. n. Something with which another thing is compared; a similitude, or illustration by similitude; a parallel.
5. n. In grammar, the variation of an adjective or (much more rarely) adverb to express a higher and the highest degree of what is denoted by the adjective or adverb. The degrees expressed thus in English, and in most of the languages related with English, are three (including as first the primitive word): positive (so called by antithesis to the others), as strong, weak, often; comparative, as stronger, weaker, oftener; and superlative, as strongest, weakest, oftenest. Adjectives not admitting this variation, and many adverbs, express like degrees by prefixing the comparative adverbs more and most: as, more glorious, most glorious; more weakly, most weakly; and such phrases often receive, less properly, the same names as the forms of equivalent value.
6. n. In rhetoric, the considering of two things with regard to some quality or characteristic which is common to them both, as the likening of a hero to a lion in courage.
7. n. In phrenology, one of the reflecting faculties, whose supposed function is to give the power of perceiving resemblances and differences or other analogies, and to produce a tendency to compare one thing with another. See phrenology
8. To compare.

Wiktionary

1. n. The act of comparing or the state or process of being compared
2. n. An evaluation of the similarities and differences of one or more things relative to some other or each-other
3. n. With a negation, the state of being similar or alike
4. n. grammar The ability of adjectives and adverbs to form three degrees.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of comparing; an examination of two or more objects with the view of discovering the resemblances or differences; relative estimate.
2. n. The state of being compared; a relative estimate; also, a state, quality, or relation, admitting of being compared.
3. n. That to which, or with which, a thing is compared, as being equal or like; illustration; similitude.
4. n. (Gram.) The modification, by inflection or otherwise, which the adjective and adverb undergo to denote degrees of quality or quantity.
5. n. (Rhet.) A figure by which one person or thing is compared to another, or the two are considered with regard to some property or quality, which is common to them both; e.g., the lake sparkled like a jewel.
6. n. (Phren.) The faculty of the reflective group which is supposed to perceive resemblances and contrasts.
7. v. obsolete To compare.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the act of examining resemblances
2. n. qualities that are comparable
3. n. relation based on similarities and differences