50 Fun Facts About Analogies

Puppy is to dog as cygnet is to which long-necked water bird?

A swan pair usually mates for life, often bonding before either bird is old enough to breed. Separation does sometimes happen, particularly after a failed nest.

A pack is to wolves as a murder is to which birds known for problem solving and tool use?

Crows and ravens are not separate scientific groups: 'raven' is just a general label for the larger species of the same genus, Corvus.

A raisin is to a grape as a prune is to which stone fruit?

A plum has to be the right kind to become a prune, since not every variety can be dried that way. In 2001 US growers won approval to call prunes 'dried plums' instead.

Paper is to wood pulp as everyday window glass is to which main raw material?

Sand can turn to glass without a furnace: lightning striking it fuses hollow, branching tubes called fulgurites. Quartz sand, or silica, is the main raw material of commercial glassmaking.

Ordinary wool is to sheep as soft, costly cashmere is to which animal?

Goat hair is the source: cashmere breeds grow a fine, soft undercoat in winter to keep warm. The name is an old spelling of Kashmir, the Himalayan region whose shawls made the fibre famous.

On the periodic table, H is to hydrogen as Au is to which chemical element?

Gold takes its symbol Au from aurum, its Latin name. The far older root behind aurum is thought to have meant 'glow'.

In the names of the sciences, botany is to plants as entomology is to what?

Insects are entomology's subject: the name joins the Greek words for 'insect' and 'study'. It is easily confused with etymology, which is the study of the history of words.

Frodo Baggins is to the Shire as Dorothy Gale is to which American farm state?

Kansas loses its hold on Dorothy as the Oz books go on: in later novels the Land of Oz becomes more familiar to her than home. Her aunt and uncle raise her there on a bleak farm.

Among common fears, arachnophobia is to spiders as claustrophobia is to which trigger?

Confined spaces are the trigger, and the name says so: claustrum is Latin for 'a shut in place'. Sufferers often fear not being able to breathe properly and running out of oxygen.

In the NATO phonetic alphabet used by pilots, A is to Alfa as F is to which code word?

Foxtrot may be shortened to 'Fox' at airports in the United States. Alfa and Juliett carry odd spellings on purpose, to stop people unfamiliar with English mispronouncing them.

A bee is to a hive as a dam-building beaver is to which kind of home?

A lodge comes in two types, built into a bank or standing in open water, and both are entered from underwater. Beavers are the second-largest living rodents, after capybaras.

A dog is to a bark and a horse to a neigh as a donkey is to which call?

A bray typically lasts twenty seconds and can be heard more than three kilometres away, which may help donkeys keep in touch across open desert.

A thermometer is to temperature as a barometer is to which weather measurement?

Air pressure trends on a barometer can forecast short-term changes in the weather. Evangelista Torricelli is usually credited with inventing the instrument in the 1640s.

In causes and effects, drought is to famine as an undersea earthquake is to which natural disaster?

Tsunami is Japanese for 'harbour wave'. Scientists avoid the nickname 'tidal wave', because it wrongly suggests that tides cause them.

In arithmetic, addition is to a sum as multiplication is to which named result?

A product of no factors at all, the so-called empty product, is defined as 1. For ordinary numbers, the order of multiplying never changes the result.

Guacamole is to avocado as the Middle Eastern dip hummus is to which main ingredient?

Chickpeas give hummus its very name: the word is simply Arabic for them. The dish's full name, hummus bi tahini, adds the tahini blended in with lemon juice and garlic.

Grapes are to wine as pressed apples are to which fermented alcoholic drink?

Cider was once simply called æppelwīn, 'apple wine', in Old English. In the US and Canada the alcoholic kind is often called hard cider, to tell it apart from unfermented apple juice.

In an orchestra, a violin is to the string section as a trumpet is to which section?

Brass tubing, bent twice into a rounded oblong, has been the trumpet's usual build since the late 15th century. The piccolo trumpet has the highest register in the family.

In the human body, the heart is to the circulatory system as the lungs are to which system?

Respiratory work in the lungs happens in millions of tiny sacs, called alveoli in mammals. Birds have their own version, known as atria.

Among Shakespeare's tragic couples, Romeo is to Juliet as the Roman general Mark Antony is to whom?

Cleopatra and Antony reached Shakespeare through Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Lives. The play follows the pair up to her suicide during the War of Actium.

In geometry, a circle is to circumference as a rectangle is to which measurement?

Perimeter is the general term, and a circumference is simply the perimeter of a circle or an ellipse. For a wheel, it tells you how far one full turn will roll.

In grammar, a noun is to an adjective as a verb is to which modifying part of speech?

Adverb has become a 'catch-all' label, linguists note, for words that fit no other category. Flat adverbs such as 'drive slow' even share their form with the adjective.

Among units named after scientists, the ohm is to electrical resistance as the hertz is to what?

Frequency in hertz honours Heinrich Hertz, the first person to give conclusive proof that electromagnetic waves exist. One hertz is often described as one cycle per second.

In classical mythology, the Greek Zeus is to the Roman Jupiter as Poseidon is to which Roman god?

Neptune was probably tied to freshwater springs before the sea: his festival fell in late July, when water was scarcest. Like his Greek counterpart, he was also a god of horses.

Among English day names, Thursday is to Thor as Wednesday is to which Norse god?

Odin was Woden to the Anglo-Saxons, and Wednesday began as Wodnesdæg, 'day of Woden'. It translates the Latin 'day of Mercury', French mercredi, because Woden was read as the Germanic Mercury.

In the zodiac, Leo is to the lion as Taurus is to which animal?

Bull is simply what Taurus means in Latin. Babylonian star lists already called the constellation the Bull of Heaven, the beast the goddess Ishtar sends against Gilgamesh.

In classic fiction, Sherlock Holmes is to Dr Watson as Don Quixote is to which companion?

Sancho Panza rides a donkey and is promised an island to govern for his trouble. His earthy sayings in the novel even have a name of their own: sanchismos.

Among fictional captains, Ahab is to the whaling ship Pequod as Nemo is to which vessel?

Nautilus was a real name first: Jules Verne borrowed it from Robert Fulton's actual submarine of 1800. Nemo's boat has to come up to breathe, much like a whale.

Among famous firsts, Neil Armstrong is to the Moon as Edmund Hillary is to which peak?

Everest was only the start for Hillary: less than five years after the 1953 climb with Tenzing Norgay, he reached the South Pole overland.

Among painters, Leonardo da Vinci is to the Mona Lisa as Edvard Munch is to which artwork?

The Scream exists in several versions, two in paint and two in pastels. Both painted ones have been stolen from public museums and later recovered.

Among Latin abbreviations, e.g. is to 'for example' as i.e. is to which English phrase?

'That is' renders the Latin id est, which introduces an explanation where e.g. introduces an example. A handy mnemonic reads i.e. as 'is equivalent'.

Among Italian tempo markings in music, adagio is to slow as allegro is to what?

Fast is only half of it: allegro means 'cheerful' in Italian, so the marking also suggests joy. Presto asks for a quicker pace still.

Among national dishes, pizza is to Italy as the meat stew goulash is to which country?

Hungary's herdsmen gave the stew its name: gulyás means both the herdsman and the soup or stew he cooked. It is one of the country's national dishes.

Tiny is to Swift's Lilliputian as enormous is to which word taken from a giant in Rabelais?

Gargantuan comes from Gargantua, the voracious giant of Rabelais's 16th-century tales. His son left a word too: Pantagruelism, for coarse humour with a serious purpose.

In number systems used by computers, base 2 is to binary as base 16 is to what?

Hexadecimal borrows the letters A to F as digits for the values ten to fifteen. Web colours are written in it: magenta, for example, is #FF00FF.

Among animal adjectives, feline is to cat and canine is to dog as ursine is to which animal?

Bear is ursus in Latin, the root of ursine and of Ursa Major, the constellation also known as the Great Bear.

Among ancient epics, the Iliad is to Homer as the Aeneid is to which Roman poet?

Virgil turned scattered tales of Aeneas into a founding myth that tied Rome to the legends of Troy. The hero's shield even shows Augustus winning at Actium.

Among giant moons, Jupiter is to Ganymede as Saturn is to which haze-covered moon?

Titan is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and the only world besides Earth with stable liquid on its surface. It is bigger than the planet Mercury.

Among famous last battles, Napoleon is to Waterloo as George Armstrong Custer is to which fight?

Little Bighorn is known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass. It was an overwhelming victory for the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho.

Among makers of reference works, a map is to a cartographer as a dictionary is to which expert?

Lexicographer got a famously wry definition from Samuel Johnson, in his own dictionary: 'a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge'.

Among winning moves, checkmate is to chess as a throw scored as ippon is to which sport?

Judo awards ippon, literally 'one full point', for a throw, a pin, a choke or a joint lock. The fighter who earns one is declared the winner, so it is often compared to a knockout in boxing.

Among places of worship, a synagogue is to Judaism as a gurdwara is to which religion?

Sikhism opens its gurdwaras to people of all faiths, and each has a langar hall where volunteers serve free vegetarian food.

Among national parliaments, Congress is to the United States as the Knesset is to which country?

Israel named its parliament after the Great Assembly of Jewish tradition, a gathering of 120 scribes, sages and prophets. The modern Knesset has 120 members to match.

Among names for young animals, a kitten is to a cat as a leveret is to which animal?

A hare is born ready to go: the young can fend for themselves shortly after birth, in a shallow dip in the ground called a form.

Among animal homes, a rabbit is to a warren as a badger is to what?

A sett can house 15 or more animals, with up to 300 metres of tunnels and as many as 40 openings. Digging one that elaborate takes badgers many years.

Among niche fields of study, numismatics is to coins as vexillology is to what?

Flags only got a named field of study in the late 1950s, when the American scholar Whitney Smith came up with the word. A vexillum was a square flag carried by Roman cavalry.

Among chemical symbols taken from older names, Fe is to iron as W is to which metal?

Tungsten is W for Wolfram, the German name it takes from its ore wolframite. It has the highest melting point of any metal, at 3,422 °C.

Among medical specialists, a cardiologist is to the heart as a nephrologist is to which organs?

Kidneys have two rival word roots, the Greek nephros and the Latin-derived 'renal'. Some experts want both replaced by the plain word, as in 'kidney medicine'.

Among old trades that became surnames, a fletcher is to arrows as a cooper is to what?

Barrels took two tradesmen: the cooper shaped the wooden staves, and a hooper, essentially his assistant, fitted the wooden or metal hoops around them.

Among animal habits, nocturnal is to night as crepuscular is to which time?

Twilight activity is thought to be mainly a way of dodging predators. Animals that stir around dawn are called matutinal, and those that stir around dusk vespertine.