Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

comparable

UK/ˈkɒmpəɹəbəl/US/ˈkɒmpəɹəbəl/
adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,728 of 15,258mostly written

Comparable means similar enough to be measured against. Comparable results, comparable in size, not comparable.

The claim is about fairness of comparison rather than likeness: two things are comparable when setting them side by side tells you something. In property, comparables are recent sales used to price a house. Note the two stresses — COM-parable is usual in Britain, com-PARE-able is common elsewhere and both are accepted.

Definitions of comparable

  1. 1adjectivecomparableSimilar enough to be measured against.C1

    “The two flats are comparable in size, but one is much cheaper.”

    synonyms: similar, equivalent

comparable is a quality of likeness.

Where it comes from

Latin comparabilis comes from comparare, to pair or match, from par, equal. Pair, peer and parity come from the same equality.

  1. Latin

    comparābilis

  2. Middle French

    comparable

  3. Middle English

    comparable

  4. English, today

    comparable

From Middle English comparable, from Middle French comparable, from Latin comparābilis. by surface analysis, compare + -able.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

Practise this word

comparable in the wild

  • In shape, the Savoy knot is comparable to a figure eight.

    Savoy knot

  • The comparable Royal Navy rank is commander, and the comparable rank in the Royal Air Force and many other Commonwealth air forces is wing commander.

    Lieutenant colonel (United Kingdom)

  • Yearlings are comparable in development to a very early adolescent and are not fully mature physically.

    Yearling (horse)

  • The comparable term used by the air forces is that of no-fly zone.

    Military exclusion zone

  • Within the family, the only subfamily of comparable diversity is the Lamiinae.

    Cerambycinae

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • compare