compareverb [ T ]
uk/kəmˈpeər/us/kəmˈper/compare verb [ T ] (EXAMINE DIFFERENCES)
B1 to examine or look for the difference between two or more things:
If you compare house prices in the two areas, it's quite amazing how different they are.
That seems expensive - have you compared prices in other shops?
Compare some recent work with your older stuff and you'll see how much you've improved.
This road is quite busy compared to/with ours.
Children seem to learn more interesting things compared to/with when we were at school.
More examples
- If you compare the two books side by side, it is clear that the author of the second has plagiarized (from the first).
- The number of people who applied for the course was 120 compared with an initial estimate of between 50 and 100.
- I thought myself very sophisticated compared with my relatives in the country.
- This matter really isn't very important if you compare it to the other problems we've got to deal with.
- The judges compared all the cakes in the cake competition for taste, texture, colour and general appearance.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Comparing and contrasting
- against
- analogy
- antithesis
- as against idiom
- balance
- balance sth against sth
- benchmark
- comparison
- competitive
- contrast
- contrastive
- differentiate
- gold standard
- relative
- relatively
- set
- simile
- stack up
- vis-à-vis
- work-life balance
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compare verb [ T ] (CONSIDER SIMILARITIES)
to judge, suggest, or consider that something is similar or of equal quality to something else:
The poet compares his lover's tongue to a razor blade.
Still only 25, she has been compared to the greatest dancer of all time.
People compared her to Elizabeth Taylor.
You can't compare the two cities - they're totally different.
does not compare
If something or someone does not compare with something or someone else, the second thing is very much better than the first:
Instant coffee just doesn't compare with freshly ground coffee.
compare favourably
If something compares favourably with something else, it is better than it:
The hotel certainly compared favourably with the one we stayed in last year.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Comparing and contrasting
- against
- analogy
- antithesis
- as against idiom
- balance
- balance sth against sth
- benchmark
- comparison
- competitive
- contrast
- contrastive
- differentiate
- gold standard
- relative
- relatively
- set
- simile
- stack up
- vis-à-vis
- work-life balance
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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:
Worse and worst
Surpassing in quality or number
Idiom(s)
compare notes
comparenoun
uk/kəmˈpeər/us/kəmˈper/literarybeyond compare
so good that everyone or everything else is of worse quality:
Her beauty is beyond compare.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Extremely good
- admirable
- amazing
- ask for sb/sth
- award-winning
- awesome
- bowl
- brilliant
- incredible
- inspired
- irreplaceable
- life is just a bowl of cherries idiom
- magnificent
- outstanding
- parallel
- sick
- superlatively
- supremacy
- supreme
- terrific
- textbook
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