Meaning of apples to apples, oranges to oranges | Babel Free

Definitions

A comparison of items that are similar, while also acknowledging or distinguishing a separation of their sets or categories.

idiomatic, plural, plural-only

Examples

“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 are similar in age, styles, class and amenities.”

“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.”

“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."”

“Immediately, I know, the electricians and plumbers are going to say you can't do it that way with the work they do. But you can. And people do. And the point of all this is to be able to always compare comparable things. Apples to apples. Oranges to oranges. Repair estimates written using standard unit costs, itemized on a line item basis are much easier to read, understand and compare than contractors' proposals.”

“This type of mistake could be very, very costly. Remember, apples to apples, oranges to oranges. It doesn't matter which option's volatility of the spread you move as long as you get both options to an equal base volatility.”

“Here the "apples to apples, oranges to oranges" comparison involves comparing one type of test to another type of test while comparing the format of one such test to the formats of the other type of test.”

“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.”

CEFR level