Definition of "analogy" []

• Similarity in some respects between things that are otherwise dissimilar. (noun)
• A comparison based on such similarity. See Synonyms at likeness. (noun)
• Biology Correspondence in function or position between organs of dissimilar evolutionary origin or structure. (noun)
• A form of logical inference or an instance of it, based on the assumption that if two things are known to be alike in some respects, then they must be alike in other respects. (noun)
• Linguistics The process by which words or morphemes are re-formed or created on the model of existing grammatical patterns in a language, often leading to greater regularity in paradigms, as evidenced by helped replacing holp and holpen as the past tense and past participle of help on the model of verbs such as yelp, yelped, yelped. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Dr. Priestley founds, not on the _resemblance or analogy, _ but on the _essential difference_, between created and uncreated intelligence; but, in point of fact, the _difference_, great and real as it is, has no bearing on the only question at issue; it is the _resemblance or analogy_ between all thinking beings and the"
• "The inference of intelligence from marks of design in nature is not one of analogy, but of strict and proper _induction_; and accordingly we must either deny that there are marks of _design_ in nature, thereby discarding the _analogy_, or do violence to our own reason by resisting the fundamental law of causality, thereby discarding the inductive inference."
• "As for the cost of setting these things up - the Mr and Mrs Britain analogy is a good one."