contrast

A contrast is the difference that jumps out when two things sit side by side. Black type on white paper, a bright coat against a grey street, a warm kitchen after the cold outside.

In photography and on screens, contrast is the gap between the light parts and the dark parts. Turn the contrast up and the picture hardens, the blacks go blacker, and high-contrast text is what makes a page readable for someone with low vision. The verb runs two ways: one thing contrasts with another, as in his calm contrasted with her panic, and you contrast two things to show how they differ, which is what compare and contrast asks for. Two phrases carry the noun into a sentence, in contrast to and by contrast, and both point back at what came before. The stress moves as well: CONtrast for the noun, conTRAST for the verb.

Phrases it lives in

• in contrast to — unlike — used to set two things side by side in writing
• by contrast — looked at the other way round