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Tantamount vs Comparable - What's the difference?

tantamount | comparable |

As nouns the difference between tantamount and comparable

is that tantamount is (obsolete) something which has the same value or amount (as something else) while comparable is something suitable for comparison.

As adjectives the difference between tantamount and comparable

is that tantamount is equivalent in meaning or effect while comparable is able to be compared (to).

As a verb tantamount

is (obsolete) to amount to as much; to be equivalent.

tantamount

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • (obsolete) To amount to as much; to be equivalent.
    • (Jeremy Taylor)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) Something which has the same value or amount (as something else).
  • * 1977 , the Last Essays of Maurice Hewlett , page 42:
    • For end thereof, not despondency but madness : for when Cossey understood that Hobday had called his wife a tantamount , he waited for him outside, and gave him what he called a pair of clippers over the ear.

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Equivalent in meaning or effect.
    • It's tantamount to fraud.
    In this view, disagreement and treason are tantamount .
  • * De Quincey
    • the certainty that delay, under these circumstances, was tantamount to ruin
  • * 1981 , Del Martin, Battered Wives (page 90)
    • expecting the woman to take her attacker into physical custody is tantamount to preventing the arrest. If she could handle him, she probably would not need to call the police in the first place.

    Usage notes

    Tantamount is used almost exclusively in the phrase tantamount to , but may also be used by itself.

    Quotations

    * 2003': In Bosnia, as in Rwanda, however, passive neutrality was '''tantamount to complicity with the perpetrators of "ethnic cleansing" and mass murder — ''The New Yorker, 3 March 2003

    comparable

    English

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • Able to be compared (to).
  • Similar (to); like.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Philip J. Bushnell
    • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= Solvents, Ethanol, Car Crashes & Tolerance , passage=Furthermore, this increase in risk is comparable to the risk of death from leukemia after long-term exposure to benzene, another solvent, which has the well-known property of causing this type of cancer.}}
  • (mathematics) Constituting a pair in a particular partial order.
  • (grammar) Said of an adjective that has a comparative and superlative form.

    • Related terms

    * incomparable * comparability * comparableness

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Something suitable for comparison.
  • * {{quote-news, 2009, January 2, Fred A. Bernstein, Catskill Home Prices: How Low Will They Go?, New York Times citation
    • , passage=And the appraiser said he couldn't come up with comparables , because there hadn't been any sales nearby in several months. }} ----