comparative method: Meaning and Definition of

compar'ative meth"od

Pronunciation: [key]
— Historical Ling. Historical Ling.
  1. a body of procedures and criteria used by linguists to determine whether and how two or more languages are related and to reconstruct forms of their hypothetical parent language.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.