SuaviloquyToday’s word

similitude

Similitude, n.

Etymology: [F. similitude, L. similitudo, from similis similar. See Similar.]

1. The quality or state of being similar or like; resemblance; likeness; similarity; as, similitude of substance. Chaucer. Let us make now man in our image, man In our similitude. Milton. If fate some future bard shall join In sad similitude of griefs to mine. Pope.

2. The act of likening, or that which likens, one thing to another; fanciful or imaginative comparison; a simile. Tasso, in his similitudes, never departed from the woods; that is, all his comparisons were taken from the country. Dryden.

3. That which is like or similar; a representation, semblance, or copy; a facsimile. Man should wed his similitude. Chaucer.

Shades of meaning

Fernald has no entry of its own for similitude; he lists it under analogy.

Where he writes about it:

Similitude is a rhetorical comparison of one thing to another with which it has some points in common. — from analogy