equal vs similar

equal

noun
  • A person or thing of equal status to others. 

verb
  • To make equivalent to; to cause to match. 

  • To have as its consequence. 

  • To be equal to, to have the same value as; to correspond to. 

adj
  • Intended for voices of one kind only, either all male or all female; not mixed. 

  • Adequate; sufficiently capable or qualified. 

  • The same in all respects. 

  • Exactly identical, having the same value. 

similar

noun
  • That which is similar to, or resembles, something else, as in quality, form, etc. 

  • A material that produces an effect that resembles the symptoms of a particular disease. 

adj
  • Of geometrical figures including triangles, squares, ellipses, arcs and more complex figures, having the same shape but possibly different size, rotational orientation, and position; in particular, having corresponding angles equal and corresponding line segments proportional; such that one can be had from the other using a sequence of rotations, translations and scalings. 

  • Of two square matrices; being such that a conjugation sends one matrix to the other. 

  • Having traits or characteristics in common; alike, comparable. 

How often have the words equal and similar occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )