comparés

Comparés is the plural masculine form of the past participle of the French verb comparer, meaning "to compare." In standard usage, comparés functions primarily as an adjective meaning "that have been compared" and agrees with masculine plural nouns. It can also be used, less commonly, as a noun phrase in academic or technical writing to refer to the items or subjects that are being compared.

Etymology and form: derived from the Latin comparare, through Old French, the term retains the sense of placing two or more entities in relation to one another. The participle agrees in gender and number: comparé (singular masculine), comparés (plural masculine), comparée(s) (feminine forms).

Grammatical usage: As an adjective, comparés modifies a noun to indicate that the referenced items have undergone comparison. For example, in a study sentence such as “les résultats comparés montrent une différence,” the phrase signals that the results have been examined side by side. The phrase “les éléments comparés” is common in methodological writing to denote the items subjected to analysis. When used predicatively, it can appear in constructions like “ces méthodes sont comparés” in informal speech, though the grammatically standard form would be “ces méthodes ont été comparées.”

As a noun, the plural les comparés may be encountered in specialized texts to designate the things that are being compared, in contrast to other groups or controls.

See also: comparaison, comparatif, comparabilité, comparandum.

Notes: While comparés is widely understood in French, it is primarily a descriptive or adjectival term; in English-language scholarship, it is typically rendered as “compared items” or “the items being compared.”