Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use equivalent in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun, verb

Equivalent means similar or identical in value, meaning or effect; virtually equal. Example: “To burn calories, a thirty-minute jog is equivalent to a couple of hamburgers.”

Examples of equivalent by meaning

adjectiveSimilar or identical in value, meaning or effect; virtually equal.

  • To burn calories, a thirty-minute jog is equivalent to a couple of hamburgers.
  • Applying a force tangential to the knob is essentially equivalent to applying one perpendicular to a radial line defining the lever.2012 March, Henry Petroski, “Opening Doors”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, pages 112–3
  • Total activity levels in the lowest quartile were equivalent to walking for 49 minutes at roughly 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) per hour daily.2024 November 15, Kristen Rogers, “Want to live an extra 5 to 10 years? Adopt this habit, study suggests”, in CNN, archived from the...

adjectiveOf two sets, having a one-to-one correspondence.

  • All enumerable sets are equivalent to each other, but not to any finite set.1950, E. Kamke, Theory of Sets, page 16
  • Equivalent sets should, by rights, have the same "number" of elements.2000, N. L. Carothers, Real Analysis, page 18
  • The equivalence theorem: If both M is equivalent to a subset N₁ of N and N is equivalent to a subset M₁ of M, then the sets M and N are equivalent to each other.2006, Joseph Breuer, Introduction to the Theory of Sets, page 41

adjectiveEqual in measure but not admitting of superposition; applied to magnitudes.

  • A square may be equivalent to a triangle.

nounAnything that is virtually equal to something else, or has the same value, force, etc.

  • This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war" — except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy.1977 April 18, Jimmy Carter, President's Address to the Nation on Proposed National Energy Policy

More sentences with equivalent

  • The note D♭ is spelled differently from C♯, even though they sound equivalent.From the entry spell
  • A helical scan with a pitch of zero is equivalent to constant z-axis scanning.From the entry pitch
  • The axiom of choice is equivalent to the proposition that every infinite cardinal is an aleph.From the entry aleph
  • The axiom of choice is logically equivalent to the assertion that every vector space has a basis.From the entry axiom of choice
  • The medial consonant u is scribally equivalent to v in this passage.From the entry scribally
  • We estimate our work-from-home employees to be 30% of our total full-time equivalents.From the entry full-time equivalent
  • Two varieties are said to be birationally equivalent if there exists a birational map between them.From the entry birationally
  • These insect and mole-rat colonies are multi-organismic equivalents of single organisms.From the entry multi-organismic
  • Steels used in salt water typically require a pitting resistance equivalent number of at least 40.From the entry pitting resistance equivalent number
  • He superscribed each character with its Latin-alphabet equivalent.From the entry superscribe
  • The two terms are arithmetically equivalent, but they are not equally intuitive regarding what phenomenon they represent in the real world.From the entry arithmetically
  • The Orthodox horologion is roughly equivalent to the Catholic breviary.From the entry horologion
  • Non-generic drugs are usually more expensive than their generic equivalents.From the entry non-generic
  • Aeroplankton are the atmospheric equivalent of oceanic plankton.From the entry aeroplankton
  • The two systems are mechanistically equivalent.From the entry mechanistically
  • It can be proved that a Dedekind domain (as defined above) is equivalent to an integral domain in which every proper fractional ideal is invertible.From the entry Dedekind domain
  • A punk-zine equivalent of a videogame with DIY production, hardware included?2024, Marijam Did, Everything to Play For: An Insider's Guide to How Videogames are Changing Our World, Verso Books, page 230. From the entry Banksyesque
  • USB-C ports and cables function just like USB-A equivalents, only better.2023 September 15, Henry T. Casey, “What is USB-C? Here’s everything you need to know”, in CNN. From the entry USB-A
  • Pretending a litterbug and a spree killer have committed equivalent infractions doesn’t make people safer.2021 January 8, Nicole Hemmer, “The striking parallels between the assaults on Charlottesville and the Capitol”, in CNN. From the entry infraction
  • If Lachemi was hiding somewhere it’d be in Ryerson’s equivalent of a sneaky labyrinth: Kerr Hall.2020 April 1, Andrea Josic, Nathaniel Crouch, Zachary Roman, “Help deliver a secret message to Rye’s president”, in The Eyeopener, volume…. From the entry never eat shredded wheat
  • They want butts in pews, or at least the coronatide equivalent.2020 July 10, Jana Riess, “If you want to win Latter-Day Saints back to the church, shame and fear are not how to do it”, in The Salt Lake…. From the entry Coronatide
  • Are there equivalent overdeities in other settings such as Eberron or Grayhawk?2020 May 29, CosmicWolf14, “Alabastor: Age of Heroes”, in reddit.com. From the entry overdeity
  • The procerebrum is the equivalent structure to the lateral lobe in Hygrophila.2019, Winston Frank Ponder, David R. Lindberg, Juliet Mary Ponder, Biology and Evolution of the Mollusca, volume 1. From the entry procerebrum
  • “Being called a mallgoth was the equivalent of being called a poser.2019 March 11, Tom Rasmussen, “The IG [Instagram] Documenting the Hot Topic Mallgoths of the 90s and 00s”, in Dazed, London: Dazed Media…. From the entry mallgoth
  • Yes, he too now has a non-union Mexican equivalent: Alex Backman.2019 August 19, Abraham Mireles, “Meet Alex Backman, Mexico's Very Own Alex Jones (Seriously)”, in Cracked. From the entry non-union Mexican equivalent
  • Trudeau has managed to symmetrically place the British and American English equivalents for four words.2017 February 8, Deb Amlen, “Monumental Work”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived…. From the entry symmetrically
  • Traditionally, the price of one koku of rice was equivalent to one hiki of silk.2016, William J. Farge, A Christian Samurai: The Trials of Baba Bunkō, Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, →ISBN…. From the entry hiki
  • In the Edo period one hiki remained more or less the equivalent of ten mon.2016, William J. Farge, A Christian Samurai: The Trials of Baba Bunkō, Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, →ISBN…. From the entry hiki
  • It does this through the glymphatic system, which is the brain's equivalent of the lymphatic system.2015, Alexandra Armitage, Advanced Practice Nursing Guide to the Neurological Exam, Springer Publishing, page 205. From the entry glymphatic
  • Equivalent terms for lesbian relationships given by Hirschfeld were korophile, parthenophile, gynecophile, and graophile.2015, Wayne Dynes, Encyclopedia of Homosexuality. Volume II, London: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1333. From the entry gynecophile
  • The esoteric identity and importance of the Perso-Arabic letter, mim, and its Bengali equivalent, ma, were stressed.2014, Asim Roy, The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal, page 124. From the entry mim
  • There was a time when a mannequin was the sculptural equivalent of fashion model.2013 August 16, Barbara Brownie, “Mangled mannequins – what happened to shop-window dummies?”, in The Guardian. From the entry mannequin

Meaning of equivalent

  1. adjective Similar or identical in value, meaning or effect; virtually equal.
  2. adjective Of two sets, having a one-to-one correspondence.
  3. adjective Relating to the corresponding elements of an equivalence relation.

Full definition of equivalent

Questions about equivalent in a sentence

How do you use equivalent in a sentence?
Equivalent is used as an adjective, noun and verb. For example: “To burn calories, a thirty-minute jog is equivalent to a couple of hamburgers.”
What is a short sentence with equivalent?
“The two systems are mechanistically equivalent.”
What does equivalent mean?
Equivalent means similar or identical in value, meaning or effect; virtually equal.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: equivalent (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use equivalent in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/equivalent. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.