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Similarity   Listen
noun
Similarity  n.  (pl. similarities)  The quality or state of being similar; likeness; resemblance; as, a similarity of features. "Hardly is there a similarity detected between two or three facts, than men hasten to extend it to all."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Similarity" Quotes from Famous Books



... scooped out in the side of it just large enough to shelter a man crouching. Each hole contained a sleeping soldier who looked as dead as the occupant of a catacomb. Some of the holes had been blown in; all you saw of the late occupant was a protruding arm or leg. At best there was a horrid similarity between the dead and the living. It seemed that the walls of the trenches had been built out of corpses, for one recognised the uniforms of French men and Huns. They were built out of them, though whether by design or accident it was impossible to ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson

... The similarity in the minds of men must sometimes come across them with a shock, unless indeed it appeals to their sense of humour. Himself in America, and the Rev. Mr. Macdonald in the north of Scotland, both answered, in course of time, that a lady's-maid should be engaged because is ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... writing a diary or a cow looking in a looking-glass. Intensely sensitive by their very vitality, they are certainly conscious of criticism and not merely of a blind and brutal appetite. But the peculiar point about them is that it is this very vividness in the self that often produces the similarity. It may be that when they are unconscious they are like bulls and cows. But it is when they are self-conscious that they are like ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... Beauclerc all about Dean Stanley, and how Helen was an heiress and no heiress, and her having determined to give up all her fortune to pay her uncle's debts. There was a guardian, too, in the case, who would not consent; and, in short, a parallelism of circumstances, a similarity of generous temper, and all this she thought must interest Beauclerc—and so it did. But yet its being told to him would have gone against his nice notions of delicacy, and Helen would have been ruined in his opinion had he conceived ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... mortgage of his property. It is the defect of these townships that the houses are all as like one another as peas in a pod—four-roomed squares or six-roomed oblongs built of red brick, and with every detail exactly the same; but their plainness and similarity does not ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... the habits and customs of their fathers, they proved to be a valuable contribution to the American stock. As they had no riches every man was to be just what he could make himself. Equality and brotherly love became their dominant traits. Common feeling and similarity of ideals made them one people whose chief characteristic was individualism.[8] Differing thus so widely from the easterners they were regarded by the aristocrats as "Men of new blood" and "Wild Irish," who formed ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... between their nest-building ways and those of the tallegalla; yet, on the whole, the similarity is very striking, as may be seen from the ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... noticeable that as one approaches the Mandya country, the similarity in dress and personal adornment to that of the Mandyas becomes more apparent. This is true on the upper Simlau, Agsan, and Ihawn, another indication of the influence of Mandya culture on the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... to conceal from her eyes what offends them. A lover undoubtedly acts wisely when he tries to suit his temper to ours; a hundred acts of politeness have less influence than this unison, which makes two hearts appear as if stirred by the same feelings. This similarity firmly unites them; for we love nothing so ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere

... their beast ancestors psychophysical traits, instincts, and dexterities, or at least predispositions, which give them aid in solving the problems of food supply, sex, commerce, and vanity. The result is mass phenomena; currents of similarity, concurrence, and mutual contribution; and these produce folkways. The folkways are unconscious, spontaneous, uncoordinated. It is never known who led in devising them, although we must believe that talent exerted its leadership at all times. Folkways come into existence now all ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... mountains are formed by the wearing down of the most decayable, or softer places, by the collected waters of the surface; consequently there is a certain similarity, or analogy, of the mountains formed of the same materials, and thus associated. The highest of those mountains should be near the center of the mass; but, in extensive masses of this kind, there may also be more than one center. Nor ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton

... "I confess one or two things looked black for me—the letters were written on the kind of paper I used, and though of course the handwriting was disguised, there was, in one or two letters, an undeniable similarity ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... account of Socrates' last hour in the prison and of his drinking the hemlock is, I imagine, to many educated men far more moving than the story of the Passion and Death of Christ. There is a curious similarity in the two tragedies that invites attention and comparison. Both sufferers were heroes and moral reformers, the victims of mistaken zeal on the part of religious authority. Socrates died in a ripe age with his life work accomplished. Jesus was cut off in His prime. ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce

... the similarity both in batting and in scoring, for in the eighth inning the Giants added another run to their score, and held this lead to the end, even though the All-Americans fought desperately in the effort ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... the garage, climbed into his car, and burned up the road between his place and that of Hal Dozier. There was very little similarity between the two brothers. Bill had been tall and lean; Hal was compact and solid, and he had the fighting agility of a starved coyote. He had a smooth-shaven face as well, and a clear gray eye, which was known wherever men gathered ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... * The similarity between Smith's early life and visions and Mohammed's has been mentioned by more than one writer. Stenhouse observes that Smith's mother "was to him what Cadijah was to Mohammed," and that "a Mohammedan writer, in a series of essays recently published in ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... matter of curiosity in all around me, my eyes sought for but one object, the cure of St. Blois. Twice or thrice, from the similarity of dress, I was deceived, and at last, when I really did behold him, as he sat alone in a window, reading, I could scarcely satisfy myself of the reality. He was lividly pale; his eyes deep sunk, and surrounded with two dark circles, while ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... than Mediocrity, by virtue of the closeness of its approach to Nature:—and so far as the standard of Excellence kept in view has been attained in this volume, a comparative absence of extreme or temporary phases in style, a similarity of tone and manner, will be found throughout:—something neither modern nor ancient but true in all ages, and like the works of Creation perfect as on ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... certain historical facts with deductions therefrom; more than a declaration of certain doctrines with their applications. It is a highly complex intellectual, moral and spiritual act. Two men may deliver the same sermon. There may be similarity of voice, of manner, of delivery, but one of these men will preach the sermon, the other only recite it. The difference may be almost beyond definition, yet it will be felt. At the bottom it will ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson

... details of the Gayal and Gyall, let it be remarked that, when we hear one animal called Gayal and another Gyall, we are not, on that account merely, to set them down as of the same species. It is hardly necessary to say, that similarity or even identity of name, is not the slightest criterion of identity of species. The name Elephant is popularly applied to that animal, whether brought from Africa or Asia; they are, nevertheless, anatomically distinct. The same observation may be made respecting ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey

... principle they were both acting now, with a strikingly suggestive similarity of method. Neither was willing to admit to the world in general, and to the other in particular, that a cynical theory could ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... mental activities of the lowest human races. If, like the dogs, the apes, and especially the anthropoids, had been for thousands of years domesticated and brought up in close relation with civilised man, the similarity of their mental activities to those of man would undoubtedly have been much more striking than it is. The apparently deep gulf which separates man from these most highly-developed mammals "is mainly founded on the fact that ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel

... the similarity between Persia and India in religion and mythology. Gods unknown to any Indo-European nation are worshipped under the same names in Sanskrit and Zend; and the change of some of the most sacred expressions in Sanskrit into names of evil spirits ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... between the different statements that we can begin to count them and examine into their agreement. Here again we have to distrust the first impulse; the kind of agreement which is really conclusive is not, as one would naturally imagine, a perfect similarity between two narratives, but an occasional coincidence between two narratives which only partially resemble each other. The natural tendency is to think that the closer the agreement is, the greater is its ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois

... so reckless as to say that the whole book had been "transferred" from Apollonius. Fortunately we have in this case the alleged source, and can meet the scholiast with a sweeping denial. Both authors portray the love of a woman, and there the similarity ends. Apollonius is wholly dependent upon a literal Cupid and his shafts. Vergil, to be sure, is so far obedient to Greek convention as to play with the motive—Cupid came to the banquet in the form of Ascanius—but only after it was really no longer needed. The psychology ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... who, in all military matters, is recognized as one of the first authorities in Europe. His history is especially interesting to Americans, since not many years ago he played a prominent part in the suppression of a rebellion which, in many features, exhibited a remarkable similarity to the one with which our own Government is contending. We refer to the secession of the seven Swiss cantons forming the Sonderbund, which, like the insurrection of the Southern States, was a revolt of reactionary against liberal principles of government; it was likewise ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... Providence performing devotional exercises in black bile. The leaps of the children were dashed. A sallow two or three minutes composed their motions, and then they jumped again to the step for lively legs. The similarity to the regimental band heading soldiers on the march from Church ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... been dismasted." Dined with his Majesty, who sent me an invitation, and took my place, by his direction, at his right hand, in the way I used when Bonaparte was with me, and was a good deal struck with the similarity of situation. On the King's left sat the Princess of Paterna, created by him Duchess of Floridia. She is married to him, but does not assume the title of Queen, because she is not of blood royal. She is an uncommonly handsome woman for her time ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland

... in which the writer says, "Mr. Kean's countenance was some years since, one of the finest ever beheld, and his eye the brightest and most penetrating. Without ever having seen Lord Byron, we should say there must have been a great similarity of features ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various

... happened. Her mother had rarely spoken of the man who had first betrayed and then deserted her—she had loved him too faithfully; with the girl's limited experience all western faces seemed curiously alike and the similarity of an uncommon name conveyed nothing to her for she did not realize that it was uncommon. She could not comprehend this terrible change in the man who had never been anything but gentle with her. She only knew that ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... at the time that Miss Seward mentions a gentleman who wrote from abroad to propose for the hand of the authoress, and who, more fortunate than the poor Chevalier Edelcrantz, was not refused by the lady. Perhaps some similarity of experience may have led Maria Edgeworth to wish for her acquaintance. Happily the time was past for Miss Edgeworth to look back; her life was now shaped and moulded in its own groove; the consideration, the variety, the difficulties of unmarried life were hers, its agreeable change, its monotony ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... though the length of our acquaintance might not justify the word, yet regard and intimacy are not always in proportion to the time people have known each other, but to their mutual perception of certain attaching qualities, a certain similarity and suitableness of character.' ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... very interesting. It requires just as much heat as will boil the kettle, to take the Gier-eagle up to his nest; and as much more to bring him down again on a hare or a partridge. But we painters, acknowledging the equality and similarity of the kettle and the bird in all scientific respects, attach, for our part, our principal interest to the difference in their forms. For us the primarily cognizable facts, in the two things, are, ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin

... the American colonies against the oppressive legislation of the British Parliament, was the next circumstance that deeply affected the constitutional struggle, in which the Irish Parliament had so long been engaged. The similarity in the grievances of Ireland and the colonies, the close ties of kindred established between them, the extent of colonial commerce involved in the result, contributed to give the American Declaration of Independence more importance ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... he justly remarks, the knowledge of the languages of the Northeast of Asia and of the interior of America is yet very limited, and more complete investigations must be waited for before any very satisfactory conclusions can be attained. The similarity of the Indian languages points without doubt to a common origin, while their variety and immense number are indications of a high antiquity; for who can estimate the succession of years necessary to subdivide a common tongue into so many languages, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... nearly in full. From the notes, unhappily imperfect, of two others, I will take only specimens; for in all there are features of similarity and it is possible to have too much even of submarine telegraphy and the romance of engineering. And first from the cruise of 1859 in the Greek Islands and to Alexandria, take a ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the profligate opponent of Christian marriage, Christian decency, and Christian propriety. Compare the teachings of Luther on polygamy with those of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet and visionary, and see their striking similarity. Mormonism in Salt Lake City, in Utah, which has brought so much disgrace to the American people, is but a legitimate outgrowth of Luther and Lutheranism." This, then, is what will have to be done: a comparison will have to be instituted ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... effect of any action may be judged from its end; because it is by action that the attainment of the end is effected. Now the end of the government of the world is the essential good, to the participation and similarity of which all things tend. Consequently the effect of the government of the world may be taken in three ways. First, on the part of the end itself; and in this way there is but one effect, that is, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... it. We have the fact that these accounts are mixed up with others concerning our present life which are often absolutely true. If a spirit can tell the truth about our sphere, it is difficult to suppose that he is entirely false about his own. Then, again, there is a very great similarity about such accounts, though their origin may be from people very far apart. Thus though "non-veridical," to use the modern jargon, they do conform to all our canons of evidence. A series of books which ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle

... virtuously, all together, though we were dying to hear it, and we turned once more to the loathsome inanities of the second chorus. If we had been doing Homer, we should have felt more in touch with Bradshaw. There's a good deal of similarity, when you come to compare them, between Homer and Haggard. They both deal largely in bloodshed, for instance. As events proved, the Euripides paper, like many things which seem formidable at a distance, was not nearly so bad as I had expected. I did a fair-to-moderate ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse

... intercommunications of the members, which resulted in a Compromise, by which the Northern, or anti-slavery portion of the country, agreed to incorporate into the ordinance and Constitution, the provision to restore fugitive slaves; and this mutual and concurrent action was the cause of the similarity of the provisions contained in both, and had its influence in creating the great unanimity by which the ordinance passed, and also in making the Constitution the ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... Richard Geyer to know his Bach so well! Yet the resemblance is far fetched, is only a hazy similarity. The triad of E-flat minor is common property, but something told me Wagner had been browsing on Bach; on this particular prelude had, in fact, got a starting point for the Norn music. The more I studied ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... towards the middle of the spot,[7] presenting much the sort of appearance that the small leaves of some water-plants or sea-weeds do at the edge of a deep hole of clear water. The exceedingly definite shape of these objects, their exact similarity one to another, and the way in which they lie across and athwart each other (except where they form a sort of bridge across a spot, in which case they seem to affect a common direction, that, namely, of the bridge itself),—all these characters seem quite ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... measured our similarity and differences. Rationally we were identical, or almost so. Emotionally we were different, vastly different. "Marls appear to exist as rationale and emotion," I reasoned. "Beyond ...
— Cogito, Ergo Sum • John Foster West

... the ancient history of India; and I had myself, in my "History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature," pointed out the case of the Rathakaras or carpenters who were admitted to the Vedic sacrifices, and who, probably from a mere similarity of name—their leader being called Bribu,—had the old Vedic Ribhus assigned to them as their peculiar deities. But these were exceptions, they were concessions aux ngres, deviations from traditional rules, entirely owing to the pressure of circumstances; not manifestations springing ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller

... mentioning, that a painting of the old school is in existence, having a remarkable resemblance to the scene described in the foregoing chapter, although it be nevertheless true that the similarity is in all respects casual, and that the author knew not of the existence of the painting till it was sold, amongst others, with the following description attached to ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... "childish diseases" which it was formerly considered impossible to escape, and little attempt was made to guard against them. Now they are recognized as serious, whooping-cough for its close relation to brain and spinal trouble; measles for their effect on the eyes and lungs; chicken-pox for its similarity to smallpox, and mumps for its general lowering of the tone of the system, allowing other diseases to ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory

... more such proofs, drawn from similarity of language, in very significant words, may be assigned. Le Gobien tells us, that the people of the Ladrones worship their dead, whom they call Anitis. Here, again, by dropping the consonant n, we have a word that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... between the twin continents of North and South America. Not only is their general form the same, but their framework as we may call it, that is, the lay of their great mountain-chains and of their table-lands, with the extensive intervening depressions, presents a striking similarity. Indeed, a zooelogist, accustomed to trace a like structure under variously modified animal forms, cannot but have his homological studies recalled to his mind by the coincidence between certain physical ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... attained to the position of Devas and who have an unexhausted remnant of the fruits of acts to enjoy or endure, revert to those stages of life in the subsequent Kalpa which had been theirs in the previous one. This is due to the similarity of every successive Kalpa to every previous one. Those again whose acts, at the time of universal destruction, have been exhausted by enjoyment or endurance in respect of their fruits, falling down from heaven, take birth among men, in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the room, and, taking up his position by the mantel-piece, looked at his companion. The similarity between them as they faced each other seemed abnormal, defying even the closest scrutiny. And yet, so mysterious is Nature even in her lapses, they were subtly, indefinably different. Chilcote was Loder deprived of one essential: ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... differences in the details of the story of Baba Abdullah and that of Hamir, as above, yet the general similarity between them is sufficient to warrant the conclusion that if one was not adapted from the other, both must have been derived from the same source; and here we have, I think, clear evidence of the genuineness of another of the tales which Galland was ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... of which the musician can obtain the symphony from the score, and which makes it possible to derive the symphony from the groove on the gramophone record, and, using the first rule, to derive the score again. That is what constitutes the inner similarity between these things which seem to be constructed in such entirely different ways. And that rule is the law of projection which projects the symphony into the language of musical notation. It is the rule for translating this language into the ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein

... breakfasting earlier than usual, prepared for a second day's labours. He followed his quarry away from the little town: Bryce was walking out to Braden Medworth. In Bryce's opinion, it was something of a wild-goose chase to go there, but the similarity in the name of the village and of the dead man at Wrychester might have its significance, and it was but a two miles' stroll from Barthorpe. He found Braden Medworth a very small, quiet, and picturesque place, with an old church on the banks of a river which promised ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher

... weeks been routined in the reading of their lines and the execution of their business, were given new speeches to say and new things to do at a moment's notice—literally, sometimes, while the performance was going on. Ghastly things happened, of course. A tricky similarity of cues would betray somebody into a speech three scenes ahead; a cut would have the unforeseen effect of leaving somebody stranded, half-changed, in his dressing-room when his entrance cue came round; an actor would dry up, utterly forget his lines ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... themselves from being the slaves of circumstance and the creatures of impulse. It is undeniable, then, if the popular feeling is to be our guide, that, high and mighty as the principle of private judgment is in religious inquiries, as we most fully grant it is, still it bears some similarity to Saul's armor which David rejected, or to edged tools which have a bad trick of chopping at our fingers, when we are but simply and innocently meaning them to make ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... Quiches,[34-2] and hence was probably in use among all these tribes. It may have had some superstitious connection with the thirteen days of their week. The [c]hob may be regarded as the original gens of the tribe, and the similarity of this word to the radical syllable of the Nahuatl calp-ulli, may not be accidental. I have elsewhere spoken of the singular frequency with which we hear of seven ancestors, cities, caves, etc., in the most ancient ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton

... might tend to the present and the eternal happiness of their valued friend and his interesting bride. It could not be otherwise than that Dame Elliot and Edith should form a speedy and a lasting friendship. There was a similarity of feeling, and a difference of character, that rendered them peculiarly agreeable to each other; and made them mutually rejoice in the prospect of future intercourse which the strong regard that subsisted between Elliot and Williams, and the nearness of Salem ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... likeness of a dead friend—a Mr. Oldeb—to whom I became much attached at Calcutta, during the administration of Warren Hastings. I was then only twenty years old. When I first saw you, Mr. Bedloe, at Saratoga, it was the miraculous similarity which existed between yourself and the painting which induced me to accost you, to seek your friendship, and to bring about those arrangements which resulted in my becoming your constant companion. In accomplishing ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... through the references to pleasant landscape which occur in other parts of the Odyssey, we shall always be struck by this quiet subjection of their every feature to human service, and by the excessive similarity in the scenes. Perhaps the spot intended, after this, to be most perfect, may be the garden of Alcinous, where the principal ideas are, still more definitely, order, symmetry and fruitfulness;[89] the beds being duly ranged between rows of vines, which, as well as the pear, apple, ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... be like the other? There is absolutely no reason for it. The similarity is purely artificial. Nature never intended all men to be cast in the same mould, and it is only the perversity of man himself that has brought the human race down to such a level. The stupidity of giving every scholar the same mental outfit is so self-evident as scarcely to need further ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst

... empty casks, to fill water, and to cut down wood for fuel; all of which were absolutely necessary occupations. We also began to brew beer from the branches or leaves of a tree, which much resembles the American black- spruce. From the knowledge I had of this tree, and the similarity it bore to the spruce, I judged that, with the addition of inspissated juice of wort and molasses, it would make a very wholesome beer, and supply the want of vegetables, which this place did not afford; and the event proved that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... of the similarity of nature to art is quite often remarkable to observe," he said to the Sheriff, "and is seeming to grow more so now and then from time to time. That piece of section of woods right there is so naturally grown you might say it was torn right off a ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler

... [16] That similarity of condition in which the hazel and the harder cerealia thrive was noted by our north-country farmers of the old School, long ere it had been recorded by the botanist. Hence such remarks, familiarized into proverbs, as "A good nut year's a good ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... of their peculiar political import, but because of their utter vulgarity. How else could we have retained our faith in Milton's character of Overton—"you, Overton, bound to me these many years past in a friendship of more than brotherly closeness and affection, both by the similarity of our tastes, and the sweetness of your manners"? Still to have copied and kept such lines implied some sympathy with their political meaning; and, Thurloe's investigations having made it credible ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... Babylonics"—and "the Cypriacs"—said to be from the pen of three different Xenophons, of whose history nothing, not even the age in which any of them lived, can be satisfactorily made out—though the uniformity of stupid extravagance, not less than the similarity of name, would lead a priori to the conclusion that one luckless wight must have been the author of all three. From this list of the Byzantine romances, (in which we are not sure that one or two may not after all have been omitted,) it will be seen that Heliodorus ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... of the Round Table familiar in almost every household. The romances of chivalry fall naturally into three general classes: those relating to Charlemagne and his peers; those relating to classical and mythological heroes; and, finally, the tales connected with King Arthur. The strong similarity which exists in the character and incidents of these three classes makes an acquaintance with one of them sufficient for the purpose of this work. The "Morte d'Arthur" and the romances of which it forms a compendium will ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... itself to be one of those many methods, and stakes its existence on the denial; because it arrogates to itself the exclusive revelation of the Divine, and cannot see, in its self-conceit, that its own doctrines disprove that assumption by their similarity to those of all creeds. There is not a dogma of the Galileans which may not be found, under some form or other, in some of those very religions from which it pretends ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... applied the name "cell" for the first time in this connection. These discoveries of Hooke, Malpighi, and Grew, and the discovery of the circulation of the blood by William Harvey shortly before, had called attention to the similarity of animal and vegetable structures. Hales made a series of investigations upon animals to determine the force of the blood pressure; and similarly he made numerous statical experiments to determine the pressure of the flow of sap in vegetables. His Vegetable Statics, published in 1727, was the first ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... before the American public much more knowledge respecting the diseases of the heart, and large vessels, than has hitherto been presented to them. A case has lately fallen under my observation, having so much similarity to those of organic diseases of the heart, which have occurred to you, as to mark its affinity, yet with some differences, which characterize it as a variety. If the statement of it will add any value to your collection of cases, you are ...
— Cases of Organic Diseases of the Heart • John Collins Warren

... concerning the highest region is, therefore, entirely from report, and what I mention concerning the others, so far as I write from actual observation, is strictly applicable only to the parts near the capital; but inquiries have enabled me to judge, that a great similarity prevails over the whole territory, and whatever differences have come to my knowledge shall be mentioned either in this part, or when I come to treat of the different principalities, which have now been subjected ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... l'Epee, astounded by the striking similarity between the facts and Joseph's account of himself, at once came to the conclusion that Providence had chosen him as the instrument for righting a great wrong, and set himself to supply the missing links in the chain of evidence, and to restore his ward to what he doubted not was his rightful inheritance. ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... as his word. At nine o'clock next evening—about the hour of his former visit—Frances ushered him into my parlour. The similarity of circumstance may have suggested to me to draw the comparison; at any rate I observed then for the first time that rapid ageing of his features which afterwards became a matter of common remark. The ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... settlement, or perhaps from Egypt and Phoenicia. Herodotus—and he is not often wrong—ascribes a great part of the mythology which the Greek poets elaborated to a Phoenician or Egyptian source. The legends have also some similarity to the poetic creations of the ancient Persians, who delighted in fairies and genii and extravagant exploits, like the labors of Hercules The faults and foibles of deified mortals were transmitted to posterity and incorporated with the attributes ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... a very ancient city, and was probably founded by a Grecian colony; for what is considered its oldest building, a Greek temple, from its similarity to the Praestum temples, fixes the date of construction with some certainty at about 650 B.C. This temple, by common consent, is stated to have been dedicated to Hercules, who, according to Solonus, landed at this spot with a ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... Byland; Byland. Campe; Campen. Catwich; Katwyk. Dodworth; Dodewaard. Ecope; Heicop. Grimestone; Grimmestein, on the Eem. Heck; Eck. Hampall; Empel, near Engelen. Herfield; Herveld. Hewick; Ewyk, &c. &c.—The evident similarity of names in this list, which might be extended through several pages, affords at least a strong presumption that a part of the land of our fathers is to be sought here. I will just add that there is a MS. containing copies of charters, registers, &c., collected ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various

... conclusion of Dante's Divine Comedy, is so obvious that I do not think any one could deny it. I have pointed out the thought underlying both works, and could easily advance further proof of their similarity, but I will keep within the limits of the last scene which contains the totality of metaphysico-erotic yearning, and I contend that it is very remarkable that a lifetime after the composition of Margaret, Faust (and with him Goethe) very ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... A trifling jingle upon the similarity in sound of the words mortale (mortal), mortaio (mortar), pestello (pestle), and pestilente (pestilential). The same word-play occurs at least ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... would have been better for his purpose if he had encouraged a look into every one of the ice-wells; for, in that case, their similarity of appearance might have tired out Sir John Westlake before they got to the last one; but as it was, when they reached the one down which the body had been precipitated, he had the mortification ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... that Oswald composed his Roslin Castle on the modulation of this air.—In the second part of Oswald's, in the three first bars, he has either hit on a wonderful similarity to, or else he has entirely borrowed the three first bars of the old air; and the close of both tunes is almost exactly the same. The old verses to which it was sung, when I took down the notes ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... floor of the deep sea, or that now swarm in any pond, there shall be no two alike, holds accurately for the myriads of men who are born and pass away. The type is the same; there are fixed resemblances, but exact similarity never. The struggle for existence, no matter what direction it may take, always ends in the singling out of individuals who, in some respect or other, are worthy to survive, while the weak perish and the elements of their bodies go to form new individuals. It soon becomes plain ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... upon the similarity in sound of the two words: soka, means grief, sloka, the heroic measure in which the poem is composed. It need scarcely be said that the derivation ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... Falconer, which is "trivial, not typical." As these oblique furrows form so marked a character of the majority of the teeth, Dr. Falconer gave to the fossil the generic name of Plagiaulax. The shape and relative size of the incisor, a, Figure 306, exhibit a no less striking similarity to Hypsiprymnus. Nevertheless, the more sudden upward curve of this incisor, as well as other characters of the jaw, indicate a great deviation in the form of Plagiaulax from ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... the very same task as Naevius; but the similarity of the subject only brings out into stronger relief the political and poetical contrast between the national and the anti- national poet. Naevius sought out for the new subject a new form; Ennius fitted or forced it into the forms of the Hellenic epos. The ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... origin of his views. It is where he discusses the striking difference between the species of mice on the east and west of the Andes (1st edition page 399): "Unless we suppose the same species to have been created in two different countries, we ought not to expect any closer similarity between the organic beings on the opposite sides of the Andes than on shores separated by a broad strait of the sea." In the 2nd edition page 327, the passage is almost verbally identical, ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... Broderick alone. And, it would seem, Broderick's for Thornton. But in their expressions there was nothing of similarity; in Thornton's was a stern readiness to mete out punishment while from Broderick's there looked forth a sudden furtiveness, ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory

... scribbler of the note. Though a minute comparison failed to establish any closer connection between them, the professor wanted to make out his point; and it was not difficult for him to find a particular similarity. ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic

... harm in that," said Raymond, "that the plan is intolerable. Briggs's nephew took the plan of what he calls a German Rat-house, for the town-hall, made in gilt gingerbread; and then adapted the church to a beautiful similarity. If that could be staved off by waiting for the bazaar, or by any other means, there might be a chance of something better. So poor Fuller thinks, though he is not man enough to ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... intensity of feeling produced in both, cases. There is one intensity of feeling produced by stimulating the senses, another by vivifying the spiritual life within. The one commences with impulses from without, the other is guarded by forces from within. Here then is the similarity, and here the dissimilarity, which constitutes the propriety of the contrast. One is ruin, the other salvation. One degrades, the other exalts. This contrast then is our ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... so far are two points; on the one hand the general similarity of these stories with that of Jesus Christ; on the other their analogy with the yearly phenomena of Nature as illustrated by the course of the Sun in heaven and the changes ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... was a noteworthy performance. In my mind I set it down as an impossible performance, save in the unlikely case that she had a second pair of glasses. I was forced, therefore, to consider seriously the hypothesis that she had remained within the house. On perceiving the similarity of the two corridors, it became clear that she might very easily have made such a mistake, and, in that case, it was evident that she must have entered the professor's room. I was keenly on the alert, therefore, for whatever would bear out this supposition, and I examined ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the names of Neptune and Amphitrite, that this curious and somewhat barbarous custom must have a classical origin. There can be no doubt that it is derived from those maritime people of old, the Phoenicians. Ceremonies, to which those I have described bear the strongest similarity, were practised by them at a very remote period, whenever one of their ships passed through the Straits of Gibraltar. That talented writer, David Urquhart, in his "Pillars of Hercules," asserts that the Phoenicians and Carthaginians possessed a knowledge of the virtues ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston

... their government was monarchy. Chosen men, whose bodies might be enfeebled by years, but whose minds were vigorous in understanding, formed the council of the state; and these, whether from their age, or from the similarity of their duty, were called FATHERS.[54] But afterward, when the monarchical power, which had been originally established for the protection of liberty, and for the promotion of the public interest, had degenerated into tyranny and oppression, they changed their plan, and appointed two ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... such attempts, are totally unlike the original, which the writers imagined they were turning into ridicule. There is not similarity enough for burlesque, or ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell

... I should be highly gratified by possessing them. To trace the connection of nations by their usages, and the similarity of the implements which they employ, has been long my favourite study. Everything that can illustrate such connections is most ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... voyages to India and China was translated by Renaudot from a manuscript written about the year 1173, speaks of a large island called Ramni, in the track between Sarandib and Sin (or China), that from the similarity of productions has been generally supposed to mean Sumatra; and this probability is strengthened by a circumstance I believe not hitherto noticed by commentators. It is said to divide the Sea of Herkend, or Indian Ocean, from ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... fox-terrier, over whom Mr Vince had happened to stumble, was the first to speak. Almost simultaneously Mr Warden joined in, and there was a striking similarity between the two voices, for Mr Warden, searching for words, emitted as a preliminary to them a sort of ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... are a bold people, but may sometimes be taken unawares, as well as other men, and though they live and think in the simple and primitive manner of the Mosaic era, they express the signs and feelings of apathy and surprise, with similarity of silence and spasmodic gestures to Indians and Englishmen. This world, too, is certainly a world of incongruities, and the more I see of it, the more I am biased in that way of reflection; and if any one will take the trouble to look at things as they are, abstractedly, and ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross

... friend, Mr. Edmonstone of Newton; and their fondness for the same literature, with Scott's eagerness to profit by his new acquaintance's superior attainment in it, thus opened an intercourse which general similarity of tastes, and I venture to add, in many of the most important features of character, soon ripened into the familiarity of a tender friendship—"An intimacy," Mr. Skene says, in a paper before me, "of which I shall ever think with so much pride—a friendship so pure and cordial ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... episode struck me as more remarkable than the similarity of taste which prevailed, as concerned myself, among the members of Mr MacGinnis's gang. Men, doubtless of varying opinions on other subjects, on this one point they were unanimous. They ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... been much puzzled to account for the varieties of moral character in men, as well as for the remarkable similarity of habit and disposition in all the individual animals of every other respective species. A few brief sentences, perspicuously worded, and scientifically arranged, will enumerate all the characteristics of a lion, or a tiger, or a wolf, or a bear, or a squirrel, or a goat, or a horse, ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... Socialist's would materially cut naval expenditure (see Chapter V). It must also be noted that the Socialists are wholly opposed to the increase of indirect taxation on tobacco and liquor, some four fifths of which falls on the shoulders of the workingman. But aside from these points, there is more similarity than contrast between ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... entrances ever at the bottom, but always at a certain distance from the ground. It is well known that nature does not imitate art, and, as a rule, art tries to copy certain forms of nature. And if, even in this similarity of the symbols of Egypt and India, nothing is to be found but a coincidence, we shall have to own that coincidences are sometimes very extraordinary. Egypt has borrowed many things from India. We must not forget that nothing is known about the origin of the Pharaohs, and ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... was imprisoned, and made his peace with government, as it is said, by a discovery of his associates. Fortitude does not appear, at any time, to have been the distinguishing virtue of poets.—There is, however, an obvious similarity between the practical turn of Chaucer's mind and restless impatience of his character, and the tone of his writings. Yet it would be too much to attribute the one to the other as cause and effect: for Spenser, whose poetical temperament was an effeminate as Chaucer's was stern and masculine, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... have a couple of letters from Dr. Armstrong; which, on account of his ancient and enduring friendship for Smollett, and of the similarity in their careers, may be given at large. Armstrong was a wrongheaded, righthearted man,—a surgeon in the army, we believe,—and a worshipper of Apollo, as well in his proper person as in that of Esculapius. In ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... "X A.M." and "IV P.M." as the only two items at all approaching to similarity; while, in these the approach is so near that they differ by only a single ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various

... Wagner thought of doing what Germans call a comic pendant to that tragedy; though what there is in the Mastersingers that hangs from Tannhaeuser I beg the reader not to ask me. There is this similarity: the central scene of each is a minstrel-contest; there is this dissimilarity: one opera is tragic in spirit and the other comic in spirit. Beyond this there is no connection, whether of resemblance or of contrast, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... simultaneously conducting a similar correspondence with General James Wilkinson. The object of the Spanish conspiracy, matured as the result of this correspondence, was to seduce Kentucky from her allegiance to the United States. Despite the superficial similarity between the situation of Franklin and Kentucky, it would be doing Sevier and his adherents a capital injustice to place them in the category of the corrupt Wilkinson and the malodorous Sebastian. Moreover, the secessionists of Franklin, ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson

... character into one that would enable him to merit Heaven. Instead, they said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved."—Acts 16:31. How similar the answer to the instructions of Peter to Cornelius, and yet how widely different the characters of the two men! Why this similarity? Because God has but one way of salvation, and that is irrespective of character. "He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel" (Ps. ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin

... "Torrents of Spring," Gemma, is unlike any other girl that Turgenev has created. In fact, all of his good women are individualised—the closest similarity is perhaps seen in Lisa and Tanya, but even there the image of each girl is absolutely distinct in the reader's mind. But Gemma falls into no group, nor is there any other woman in Turgenev with whom one instinctively ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... never took counsel with flesh and blood upon such questions. He knew that, whatever differences might exist between one race and another, there was everywhere the one sad similarity when it came to neglect of God and the soul. That The Army must adapt itself to each new population he had always taught; but that it would ultimately succeed wherever there were masses of godless ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... about a thousand different origins, while the monogenous position is strengthened by the ascertained facts that the different racial groups are fruitful amongst themselves, and present points of mental and physical similarity which accord well with this theory. Ethnologists now divide the human race into three main groups: the Ethiopian or negro, the Mongolic or yellow, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... Tibet, and lately collected by Emil de Schlagintweit.... Whether they can be with certainty identified with the Chinese Taosse I cannot decide, as I don't know if anything like historical evidence about their Chinese origin has been detected anywhere, or if it is merely a conclusion from the similarity of their doctrines and practices.... But the Chinese author of the Wei-tsang-tu-Shi, translated by Klaproth, under the title of Description du Tubet (Paris, 1831), renders Bonpo by Taosse. So much seems to be ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... his reasoning. Thus it is that a fair judgment is never formed upon any question; the spirit of party influences every man's opinions. It is not extraordinary that each individual of a party connected by general similarity of opinion should adhere to the great body, even in cases where he may not happen to agree with them, and excellent reasons may be adduced for his sacrificing his own view for the great object of unanimity; but it is very improbable that on a particular question, unconnected ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville



Words linked to "Similarity" :   homology, correspondence, parallel, analog, uniformness, Gestalt principle of organization, approximation, uniformity, parallelism, homomorphy, Gestalt law of organization, dissimilar, dissimilarity, alikeness



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