- measured or judged by how similar or different it is to something else synonym relative
- Then he was living in comparative comfort (= compared with others or with his own life at a previous time).
- The company is a comparative newcomer to the software market (= other companies have been in business much longer).
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- relating to studying things to find out how similar or different they are
- a comparative study of the educational systems of two countries
- comparative linguistics
- (grammar) relating to adjectives or adverbs that express more in amount, degree or quality, for example better, worse, slower and more difficult compare superlativeTopics Languagea2
Word Originlate Middle English (in sense (3)): from Latin comparativus, from comparare ‘to pair, match’, from compar ‘like, equal’, from com- ‘with’ + par ‘equal’.
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comparative