Comparative meaning

kəm-păr'ə-tĭv
The definition of comparative is a comparison or an assessment of similarities and differences between two or more things.

An example of something that would be described as comparative is a report you write on the relative merits of one book over another, a comparative book report.

adjective
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Of, relating to, or being the intermediate degree of comparison of adjectives, as better, sweeter, or more wonderful, or adverbs, as more softly.
adjective
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The comparative degree.
noun
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A rival.
noun
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An adjective or adverb expressing the comparative degree.
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That compares; involving comparison as a method, esp. in a branch of study.

Comparative linguistics.

adjective
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Estimated by comparison with something else; relative.

A comparative success.

adjective
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Designating or of the second degree of comparison of adjectives and adverbs; expressing a greater degree of a quality or attribute than that expressed in the positive degree.
adjective
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Of or relating to comparison.
adjective
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Using comparison as a method of study, or founded on something using it.

Comparative anatomy.

adjective
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Approximated by comparison; relative.
adjective
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(grammar) A construction showing a relative quality, in English usually formed by adding more or appending -er. For example, the comparative of green is greener; of evil, more evil.
noun
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(grammar) A word in the comparative form.
noun
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Estimated by comparison; relative.

A comparative newcomer.

adjective
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Origin of comparative

  • From Middle French comparatif, from Latin comparativus, equivalent to comparatus, from comparare (“to compare”) + -ive, from Latin -ivus.
    From Wiktionary

Comparative Sentence Examples

  • For the next seven or eight years he lived in comparative privacy.

  • trans., Comparative A-natomy of the Vegetative Organs of the Phanerogams and Ferns, Oxford, 1882).

  • Maas in Results of In its arrangement the muscular tissue the "Albatross " Expedition, forms two s stems: the one composed Museum of Comparative Y P Zoology, Cambridge, Masse, of striated fibres arranged circularly, that U.S.A. is to say, concentrically round the central FIG.

  • The American engineer is more fortunately situated than his English brother with regard to the possibility of a solution, as will be seen from the comparative diagrams of construction gauges, figs.

  • That chapter of comparative anatomy (together with other anatomical details, for which see the separate articles) is now dealt with in the article Skull; here only the most avine features are alluded to, and since some of Parker's original illustrations have been retained, the description has been shortened considerably.

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Related articles

Words near comparative in the Dictionary