COMPARATIVE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Comparative

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/kəmpˈɛrətɪv/ Listen

adjective

Comparative adj.

1.

Of or pertaining to comparison. "The comparative faculty."

2.

Proceeding from, or by the method of, comparison; as, the comparative sciences; the comparative anatomy.

3.

Estimated by comparison; relative; not positive or absolute, as compared with another thing or state. "The recurrence of comparative warmth and cold." "The bubble, by reason of its comparative levity to the fluid that incloses it, would necessarily ascend to the top."

4.

(Gram.) Expressing a degree greater or less than the positive degree of the quality denoted by an adjective or adverb. The comparative degree is formed from the positive by the use of -er, more, or less; as, brighter, more bright, or less bright.

Comparative sciences, those which are based on a comprehensive comparison of the range of objects or facts in any branch or department, and which aim to study out and treat of the fundamental laws or systems of relation pervading them; as, comparative anatomy, comparative physiology, comparative philology.

noun

Comparative n. (Gram.)

1.

The comparative degree of adjectives and adverbs; also, the form by which the comparative degree is expressed; as, stronger, wiser, weaker, more stormy, less windy, are all comparatives. "In comparatives is expressed a relation of two; as in superlatives there is a relation of many."

2.

An equal; a rival; a compeer. (Obs.) "Gerard ever was His full comparative."

3.

One who makes comparisons; one who affects wit. (Obs.) "Every beardless vain comparative."

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Etymology of 'Comparative'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Comparative" Quotes from Famous Books

... by an embarrassment of breathing. The disorder was subsequently ascertained to have been ossification of the vessels of the heart. The symptoms continued to vary, the patient enjoying temporary intervals of comparative ease; but they did not give way, and they brought with them such an accession of bodily debility as rendered painful ...

— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... have borne this one pair of eyes with comparative ease, but unfortunately there was young Cranch, who, having come all the way from the Chalky Flats to represent his mother and watch his uncle Jonah, also felt it his duty to stay and to sit chiefly in the kitchen to give his uncle company. Young ...

— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... and consequences abound in the oldest law. 'The effect,' says Sir Henry Maine, the greatest of our living jurists—the only one, perhaps, whose writings are in keeping with our best philosophy—'of the evidence derived from comparative jurisprudence is to establish that view of the primeval condition of the human race which is known as the Patriarchal Theory. There is no doubt, of course, that this theory was originally based on the Scriptural history of the Hebrew patriarchs in Lower Asia; but, as has been explained already, ...

— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot

... calm consideration would have sufficed to show the danger of the undertaking, and the comparative worthlessness of the prize. But the temptation spoke to his feelings; the warning only to his reason. It was his misfortune that his nearest and most influential counsellors espoused the side of his passions. The aggrandizement of their master's power ...

— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... far away amid the blue skies, and to rail at the sharp edges and corners of things that fret against our ribs. Let it be admitted that there is not a little of artistical decoration, and a great deal of optical illusion, in the matter; still there is some truth, some great truth, that lay in comparative neglect till Schlegel brought it into prominency. This is genuine literary merit; it is that sort of discovery, so to speak, which makes criticism original. And it was not merely with the bringing forward of new materials, but by throwing new lights on the old, that Frederick Schlegel enriched ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine -- Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various

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