parallelism

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The quality or condition of being parallel; a parallel relationship.
2. n. Likeness, correspondence, or similarity in aspect, course, or tendency.
3. n. Grammar The use of identical or equivalent syntactic constructions in corresponding clauses or phrases.
4. n. Philosophy The doctrine that to every mental change there corresponds a concomitant but causally unconnected physical alteration.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A parallel position, in any sense of the word parallel.
2. n. The retention by a moving line of positions parallel to one another.
3. n. Analogy.
4. n. Specifically The correspondence resulting from the repetition of the same sentiment or imagery, sense, or grammatical construction: a marked feature of Hebrew poetry.
5. n. A parallel or comparison.
6. n. The opinion that the relation between the brain and the mind, although it is one of concomitant variation, is not the relation of cause and effect; the opinion that mental process and brain process are parallel events, and that they do not interact. Metaphysically, parallelism may be either dualistic or monistic; in the latter case, the relation of mind and brain may be figuratively described as that of the concave and convex aspects of a circle. Psychologically, parallelism may be held to imply a special law of mental causation, or it may be content to appeal to the body for the explanation of mind without relating mental processes among themselves. Specifically called psychophysical parallelism, which see below.
7. n. In evolution, the independent development of similar species or types of animals in different regions.

Wiktionary

1. n. The state or condition of being parallel; agreement in direction, tendency, or character.
2. n. The state of being in agreement or similarity; resemblance, correspondence, analogy.
3. n. A parallel position; the relation of parallels.
4. n. 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. n. 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. n. 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. n. biology Similarity of features between two species resulting from their having taken similar evolutionary paths following their initial divergence from a common ancestor.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The quality or state of being parallel.
2. n. Resemblance; correspondence; similarity.
3. n. Similarity of construction or meaning of clauses placed side by side, especially clauses expressing the same sentiment with slight modifications, as is common in Hebrew poetry; e. g.: -- . At her feet he bowed, he fell: Where he bowed, there he fell down dead. Judg. v. 27.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. similarity by virtue of corresponding