Learn English – What’s the term for the left hand side of a comparison operation

comparisonscomputingmathematics

I believe the right hand side of a comparison (i.e. the thing being compared to) can be termed a 'comparand'. Is there a word that can be used for the the left hand side of that equation? I.e. the thing that we're comparing?

Best Answer

Let A be the thing to be compared, and B the thing to compare, that is:

A is like B

then according to the structure mapping engine (SME), A is called source and B is called target.

SME maps knowledge from a source into a target.

Say we have a sentence: "The hydrogen atom is like our solar system". The "hydrogen atom" is the source, "solar system" is the target.

In the original paper of Gentner, A is called the base.


FYI: Analogy - Wikipedia

Related Topic