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megalocomparison

noun

Etymology

From megalo- + comparison, coined by Matisoff (1990) in a critique of Joseph Greenberg's "mass comparison" (see quotation below).

  1. derived from comparātiō
  2. derived from comparison
  3. inherited from comparisoun
  4. formed as megalocomparison — “megalo- + comparison”

Definitions

  1. Long-range comparison

    Long-range comparison; especially, far-fetched long-range comparison that cannot sufficiently demonstrate any genetic relationship.

    • Megalocomparison takes on any more remote relationship, where sound-correspondences are not regular and putative cognates are few, so that chance rivals genetic relationship as the explanation for perceived similarities.
    • There have been many recent broadsides on megalocomparison, and those who still think them inappropriate may find this paper a revelation[…]
    • It seems to be part of a larger project of megalo-comparison whose aim is ultimately to reduce the number of language families in the world to a much smaller number than is now normally accepted.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for megalocomparison. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA