Word.ws English Dictionary

apples to apples, oranges to oranges

apples to apples, oranges to oranges noun: a comparison of items that are similar, while also acknowledging or distinguishing a separation of their sets or categories.

Noun

apples to apples, oranges to oranges pl (plural only)

  1. (idiomatic, plural, plural-only) A comparison of items that are similar, while also acknowledging or distinguishing a separation of their sets or categories.
    • When you search for comparable objects, be sure you have a realistic opinion of your building. If your building is an older garden apartment, the rents of a luxury high-rise nearby are not valuable for comparison purposes. Compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges. Be sure the apples you compare...1978, Duane Gomer, Creative Apartment Management ... the Easy Approach, A Compendium for Apartment Owners and Managers, Property Managers and Supervisors, Brokers, and Everyone Interested in the...
    • Comparing utilization and financial data among different health centers is always difficult. Variations in reimbursement, record-keeping and reporting practices, as well as other factors, present formidable barriers to assuring "apples to apples, oranges to oranges" comparisons.1988, United States, Bureau of Health Care Delivery and Assistance, Laboratory & X-ray Services In Community and Migrant Health Centers, page 13

Examples of apples to apples, oranges to oranges in a sentence

  • Compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges.1978, Duane Gomer, Creative Apartment Management ... the Easy Approach, A Compendium for Apartment Owners and Managers, Property Managers...
  • After reading the claims: "Thus, the syntax of the claim suggests comparison of like entities to like entities-apples to apples, oranges to oranges, heating medium to heating medium."1999, Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society, volume 81, page 615:
  • Remember, apples to apples, oranges to oranges.2009, Ron Ianeri, Options Theory and Trading, A Step-by-Step Guide to Control Risk and Generate Profits, page 244:
  • While a two-mode network can help us intuit interesting patterns within the data, for actual analysis, we need to transform it so that we have apples to apples, oranges to oranges.2022, Shawn Graham, Ian Milligan, Scott B. Weingart, Kimberley Martin, Exploring Big Historical Data: The Historian's Macroscope (Second...

Questions about apples to apples, oranges to oranges

What does apples to apples, oranges to oranges mean?
Apples to apples, oranges to oranges means a comparison of items that are similar, while also acknowledging or distinguishing a separation of their sets or categories.
How do you use apples to apples, oranges to oranges in a sentence?
Compare apples to apples, oranges to oranges.
What part of speech is apples to apples, oranges to oranges?
Apples to apples, oranges to oranges is a noun.

Words near apples to apples, oranges to oranges in the dictionary

  1. apples of Peru
  2. apples of Sodom
  3. apples of someone's eye
  4. apples of the eye
  5. apples to apples
  6. apples to apples, oranges to oranges
  7. apples to oranges
  8. apples up
  9. apples with apples
  10. apples-of-Peru
  11. apples-to-oranges

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: apples to apples, oranges to oranges (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “apples to apples, oranges to oranges.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/apples_to_apples%2C_oranges_to_oranges. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.