- match
- match vb Match, rival, equal, approach, touch are comparable, especially in negative constructions, when they mean to come up to or nearly up to the level or standard of something else.One thing matches another when it proves to be its mate, rather than its duplicate, in power, strength, performance, beauty, or interest{
it has been said thaj no language can match French in expressing ideas with clarity and exactness
}{the beauty of his person was matched by the grace and dignity of his spirit— Buchan
}{no mortal builder's most rare device could match this winter palace of ice— J. R. Lowell
}{we are prone to imitate the vices of those whose virtues we cannot match— McCartney
}One thing rivals another when it closely competes with it for superiority or in excellence{but would you sing, and rival Orpheus' strain, the wond'ring forests soon should dance again— Pope
}{work of a beauty certainly not rivaled until we come to the Norman builders— Quiller-Couch
}{some of them are furnished with colors that rival or excel the brilliance of the famous Morpho butterflies— Curran
}{while my father could never have rivaled the sartorial magnificence of some of his friends, he dressed in the ceremonial manner of the time— Brooks
}One thing equals another when it rises to the same level or plane (as in quantity, value, or degree) and there is no question concerning a difference, especially a deficiency{such a striking civility . . . ought to be imitated, though it could not be equalled, by some exertion of politeness on their side— Austen
}{no other measure of our work equals the sight of the product put to its full uses— Suzzallo
}{its society was formed by religion to an extent never equaled in any other epoch of its history— M. W. Baldwin
}One thing approaches another when it so nearly equals or matches the other that the difference, though detectable, is seldom important{an adult reader with trained habits of. .. concentration will absorb the contents of a book with a speed and retentiveness which no child can approach— Eliot
}{an unlettered speaker may startle you with his power of giving to the spoken word an urgent aptness that approaches the vivid instancy of an involuntary cry— Montague
}One thing touches another thing when it closely approaches the other (as in excellence or beauty){not another woman there to touch her— W. J. Locke
}{Yeats, the last in the aristocratic tradition of poets . . . none of us can touch his later work— Day Lewis
}Analogous words: correspond, harmonize, *agree, conform, square, accord
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
