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Of or pertaining to comparison. "The comparative faculty." Granvill.

ording to estimate made by comparison; relatively; not positively or absolutely. With but comparatively few exceptions. Prescott.

sounds. See Guide to pronunciation, §§ 43-74. The regular long a, as in fate, etc., is a comparatively modern sound, and has taken the place of what, till about the early part of the 17th century, was a sound of the quality of ä (as in far).

uences or without comparison with other objects; actual; real; -- opposed to relative and comparative; as, absolute motion; absolute time or space.

Description or comparative study of the customs of savage or uncivilized tribes.

The quality, or comparative purity, of gold or silver; fineness.

Of little comparative value, as metal inferior to gold and silver, the precious metals.

A comparatively rare element related to zinc, and occurring in some zinc ores. It is a white metal, both ductile and malleable. Symbol Cd. Atomic weight 111.8. It was discovered by Stromeyer in 1817, who named it from its association with zinc or zinc ore. Cadmium yellow, a compound of cadmium and sulphur, of an intens…

An instrument which, when placed in contact with the chest, will register graphically the comparative duration and intensity of the heart's movements.

Anything of a comparatively light and worthless character; the refuse part of anything. The chaff and ruin of the times. Shak.

Of comparatively small value; common; mean. You grow cheap in every subject's eye. Dryden. Dog cheap, very cheap, -- a phrase formed probably by the catachrestical transposition of good cheap. [Colloq.]

A comparatively rare element occurring most abundantly in the mineral chromite. Atomic weight 52.5. Symbol Cr. When isolated it is a hard, brittle, grayish white metal, fusible with difficulty. Its chief commercial importance is for its compounds, as potassium chromate, lead chromate, etc., which are brilliantly colore…

Free, or comparatively free, from pain or distress; -- used of a sick person. [U. S.]

To inflect according to the degrees of comparison; to state positive, comparative, and superlative forms of; as, most adjectives of one syllable are compared by affixing "-er" and "-est" to the positive form; as, black, blacker, blackest; those of more than one syllable are usually compared by prefixing "more" and "mos…

To set in opposition, or over against, in order to show the differences between, or the comparative excellences and defects of; to compare by difference or contrariety of qualities; as, to contrast the present with the past.

A large class of Echinodermata, including numerous extinct families and genera, but comparatively few living ones. Most of the fossil species, like some that are recent, were attached by a jointed stem. See Blastoidea, Cystoidea, Comatula.

I would employ . . . dianoetic to denote the operation of the discursive, elaborative, or comparative faculty. Sir W. Hamilton.

Anything small and like a speck comparatively; a small portion or specimen; as, a dot of a child.

Of certain morbid conditions, in which there is entire or comparative absence of moisture; as, dry gangrene; dry catarrh.

Tendency to emission; comparative facility of emission, or rate at which emission takes place, as of heat from the surface of a heated body.