Other forms: compared, comparing, compares
To compare two things is to hold them up next to each other and see how they are alike and where they differ. Two phone deals in two browser tabs, this year's photo against last year's, the price on the shelf and the price on your receipt.
Compare takes with or to, and the two are not the same. Compare with sets things side by side to weigh them: sales this year compared with last. Compare to says one thing is like another: critics compared her to Billie Holiday. The noun is comparison and the adjective is comparable, stressed on the first syllable, COM-parable. Two people who compare notes tell each other what they each found out. And when something is beyond compare, nothing else comes close.
1verbcompareTo examine two or more things in order to see how they are similar and how they differ.
“It is worth comparing prices before you book anything.”
2verblikenTo say that one thing is like another.
“Reviewers compared his first novel to early Dickens.”
synonyms: liken, equate
3verbgoodTo be as good as something else.
“Nothing compares with a hot shower after a long walk.”
Compare came through Old French comparer from Latin comparare, built on compar, 'equal to another' — com-, 'with', plus par, 'equal'. That par is the one in on a par and par for the course. To compare is to set two things down as equals and look hard at both.
Latin
comparare — to prepare, procure
Old French
comparer
Middle English
comparen
English, today
compare
Built from
From Middle English comparen, from Old French comparer, from Latin comparare (“to prepare, procure”), from compar (“like or equal to another”), from com- + par (“equal”). Displaced native metan (“to compare,” also “to measure”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA