Definition:
Reasoning or explaining from parallel cases. A simile is an expressed analogy; a metaphor is an implied one. Adjective: analogous. See also:
- What Is an Analogy?
- Analogies in David Simon's "Homicide"
- "The Battle of the Ants," by Henry David Thoreau
- Benchley's "Advice to Writers"
Etymology:
From the Greek "proportion"Examples and Observations:
- "Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo."
(Don Marquis) - "Harrison Ford is like one of those sports cars that advertise acceleration from 0 to 60 m.p.h. in three or four seconds. He can go from slightly broody inaction to ferocious reaction in approximately the same time span. And he handles the tight turns and corkscrew twists of a suspense story without losing his balance or leaving skid marks on the film. But maybe the best and most interesting thing about him is that he doesn't look particularly sleek, quick, or powerful; until something or somebody causes him to gun his engine, he projects the seemly aura of the family sedan."
(Richard Schickel, Time magazine review of Patriot Games) - "If I had not agreed to review this book, I would have stopped after five pages. After 600, I felt as if I were inside a bass drum banged on by a clown."
(Richard Brookhiser, "Land Grab," The New York Times, August 12, 2007) - "One good analogy is worth three hours discussion."
(Dudley Field Malone) - "MTV is to music as KFC is to chicken."
(Lewis Black) - "That novels should be made of words, and merely words, is shocking, really. It's as though you had discovered that your wife were made of rubber: the bliss of all those years . . . from sponge."
(William H. Gass, "The Medium of Fiction," Fiction and the Figures of Life, David R. Godine, 1979) - "Memory is to love what the saucer is to the cup."
(Elizabeth Bowen, The House in Paris, 1949)
Pronunciation: ah-NALL-ah-gee
