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by Kate Woodford

This week, I’m looking at the language we use to say that things or people are similar, either in appearance or character. There are a tremendous lot of interesting words and phrases in this area so this post will be in two parts.

Starting with adjectives, if two people or objects are similar, we can say they are alike. ‘Alike’ always comes after a verb:

The boys are both blond but they don’t really look alike. / They’re very alike in their leadership styles.

Two things or people that are extremely similar or exactly the same may be described as identical or indistinguishable:

The two sisters often wore identical outfits. / The two products are virtually indistinguishable.

Meanwhile, we use the adjectives comparable and analogous to say that two abstract things or situations are similar and therefore able to be compared:

Property prices in the town itself are comparable to London.

An analogous situation is the dropping of a stone into a pond.

The adjectives homogeneous and homogenous describe a group of people or things that are all similar, being of the same type:

The community is by no means homogeneous, with people of varied backgrounds and religious faiths.

Something that is akin to something else is similar to it, usually in its qualities or character. This is a slightly formal phrase:

He describes the experience of being in love as a state that is akin to madness.

Moving on to verbs, an alternative to saying that someone or something looks like someone or something else is to say that they resemble each other. (You can also say that there is a resemblance between two people or things, or say that one person or thing bears a resemblance to another):

It’s often said that dogs resemble their owners. / She bore a striking resemblance to his first wife.

There are some useful phrasal verbs in this area, too. Someone who takes after an older member of the family looks or behaves like them:

Alex takes after his grandfather with his musical talents.

Meanwhile, if you can tell two very similar people or things apart, you are able to see the differences between them. This phrasal verb is often used for saying that the similarity makes this difficult:

The twins were so similar, even their parents had trouble telling them apart.

Of course, when we remark that people or things are very similar, we’re sometimes saying something negative. For example, in US English, we may talk about cookie-cutter houses, suburbs, designs, etc., referring to things that are very similar, in a way that is not original or interesting. In UK English, we use the adjective identikit in a similar way:

People have grown tired of cookie-cutter hotels and want something more individual.

We drove past any number of identikit housing developments.

The adjective copycat is even more emphatic, describing items which have been deliberately made to be the same as something else:

They sell copycat versions of designer-branded clothing.

The noun clone is used, sometimes negatively, to emphasize how similar two people or things are:

My son is basically a clone of his father. / It was criticized for being a clone of its main competitor.

I hope you’ve enjoyed Part 1 of this ‘similarities’ post. If you’ve found it useful, please look out for Part 2 which will focus on idioms in this area.