Vergleichenden

Vergleichenden is the declined form of the German present participle of the verb vergleichen, meaning to compare. In German, present participles used as adjectives take endings that reflect the gender, number, and case of the noun they modify. Vergleichenden is the form that appears in plural and in various cases after definite determiners. Examples include die vergleichenden Studien (nominative plural), den vergleichenden Studien (dative plural), der vergleichenden Studien (genitive plural), and die vergleichenden Studien (accusative plural).

In typical usage, vergleichenden occurs in academic or technical writing to describe studies, analyses, methods, or results that involve comparison. It is an attributive adjective, so its ending changes with the article or determiner in each case. The corresponding predicative form is vergleichend (e.g., Die Studien sind vergleichend). The bare stem vergleichend is also used as an independent adjective in some contexts, while the noun form die Vergleichenden is rare and mainly appears in headlines or specific stylistic usages.

Etymology and related terms: vergleichenden derives from vergleichen, with the common -end participle suffix. Related words include der Vergleich (the comparison) and vergleichend (the present participle used as an adjective). The term primarily appears in German-language scholarly prose, where precise description of comparative investigations or cross-national analyses is common.