[ee-kwuh
l] 
adjective, noun, verb, e⋅qualed, e⋅qual⋅ing or (especially British) e⋅qualled, e⋅qual⋅ling.| 1. | as great as; the same as (often fol. by to or with): The velocity of sound is not equal to that of light. |
| 2. | like or alike in quantity, degree, value, etc.; of the same rank, ability, merit, etc.: two students of equal brilliance. |
| 3. | evenly proportioned or balanced: an equal contest. |
| 4. | uniform in operation or effect: equal laws. |
| 5. | adequate or sufficient in quantity or degree: The supply is equal to the demand. |
| 6. | having adequate powers, ability, or means: He was equal to the task. |
| 7. | level, as a plain. |
| 8. | tranquil or undisturbed: to confront death with an equal mind. |
| 9. | impartial or equitable. |
| 10. | a person or thing that is equal. |
| 11. | to be or become equal to; meet or match: So far the rate of production doesn't equal the demand. If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. |
| 12. | to make or do something equal to: No matter how he tries, he can't equal his brother's achievements. |
| 13. | Archaic. to make equal; equalize. |
| 14. | Obsolete. to recompense fully. |
| e·qual (ē'kwəl) adj.
tr.v. e·qualed or e·qualled, e·qual·ing or e·qual·ling, e·quals
[Middle English, from Latin aequālis, from aequus, even, level.] e'qual·ly adv. Usage Note: It has been argued that equal is an absolute term—two quantities either are or are not equal—and hence cannot be qualified as to degree. Therefore one cannot logically speak of a more equal allocation of resources among the departments. However, this usage was accepted by 71 percent of the Usage Panel in an earlier survey. Objections to the more equal construction rest on the assumption that the mathematical notion of equality is appropriate to the description of a world where the equality of two quantities is often an approximate matter, and where statements of equality are always relative to an implicit standard of tolerance. When someone says The two boards are of equal length, we assume that the equality is reckoned to some order of approximation determined by the context; if we did not, we would be required always to use nearly equal when speaking of the dimensions of physical objects. What is more, we often speak of the equality of things that cannot be measured quantitatively, as when we say The college draft was introduced in an effort to make the teams in the National Football League as equal as possible, or The candidates for the job should all be given equal consideration. In all such cases equality is naturally a gradient notion and can be modified in degree. This much is evident from the existence of the word unequal, for the prefix un- attaches only to gradient adjectives. We say unmanly but not unmale; and the word uneven can be applied to a surface (whose evenness may be a matter of degree) but not to a number (whose evenness is an either/or affair). · The adverb equally is generally regarded as redundant when used in combination with as. In an earlier survey, 63 percent of the Usage Panel found the following examples unacceptably redundant: Experience is equally as valuable as theory. Equally as important is the desire to learn. To eliminate the redundancy, equally should be deleted from the first example and as from the second. The solution to this usage problem usually involves using as alone when a comparison is explicit and equally alone when it is not. See Usage Notes at absolute, as1, center, perfect, unique. |
equals character
"=", ASCII character 61.
Common names: ITU-T: equals; gets; takes. Rare: quadrathorpe; INTERCAL: half-mesh.
Equals is used in many languages as the assignment operator though earlier languages used ":=" ("becomes equal to") to avoid upsetting mathematicians with statements such as "x = x+1". It is also used in compounds such as "<=", ">=", "==", "/=", "!=" for various comparison operators and in C's "+=", "*=" etc. which mimic the primitive operations of two-address code.
(1995-03-29)