likeness

likeness, similarity, resemblance, similitude, analogy, affinity are comparable when they denote agreement or correspondence or an instance of agreement or correspondence in details (as of appearance, structure, or qualities) brought out by a comparison of two or more things.

Likeness commonly implies closer correspondence than similarity, which often applies to things which are merely somewhat alike

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thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above— Deut 5:8

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yes, I should have known you anywhere from your likeness to your father— Archibald Marshall

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Zaza is an old woman, while you, princess, still have youth and beauty. Nevertheless, the likeness is positively amazing— Robert Standish

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certain insects escape danger by their similarity to plants— Lubbock

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great works of art have a decided similarity to great human beings— they are both three-dimensional— Hartford

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Resemblance suggests especially similarity in appearance or in superficial or external qualities

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it would be as difficult to discover any resemblance between the two situations as between the appearance of the persons concerned— Wharton

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Similitude, which is somewhat infrequent and bookish, is occasionally preferred to likeness or similarity when an abstract term is desired

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the law which reconciles similitude and dissimilitude, the harmony of contrast— Reed

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all medieval variances of thought show common similitudes—H. O. Taylor

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Analogy distinctively implies comparison of things which are unlike, not only specifically or generically, but often even in substance or essence, and it more often draws attention to likeness or parallelism in relations rather than in appearances or qualities. Philosophically, it suggests such assumptions as that similar causes will produce similar effects or that what is true in one order of existence must be true in another

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three principal types [of ants] offering a curious analogy to . . . the hunting, pastoral, and agricultural stages in the history of human development— Lubbock

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such senile efforts to penetrate . . . the mystery of religion . . . have a real analogy to that final effort of the emotionally starved to grasp at love which has been called "old maid's insanity"— Ellis

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Affinity adds to resemblance the implications of such a relationship as natural kinship, temperamental sympathy, similar experience, or historical influence, which is responsible for the likeness

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in Keats, there are . . . phrases and paradoxes that have surprising affinities with Taoist thought— Binyon

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his face . . . had a curious affinity to the faces of old sailors or fishermen who have lived a simple, practical life in the light of an overmastering tradition— Galsworthy

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Analogous words: equivalence, equality, sameness, identicalness or identity (see corresponding adjectives at SAME): agreement, conformity, correspondence (see corresponding verbs at AGREE): analogousness, comparableness, uniformity, parallelism (see corresponding adjectives at LIKE)

Antonyms: unlikeness

Contrasted words: *dissimilarity, difference, divergence, divergency, distinction