-like
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English -like, -lik, from Middle English like, lik (“same, similar, alike”), from Old English ġelīc and Old Norse líkr (“same, similar, alike”). Reinforced by like (preposition). Doublet of -ly. Compare also Dutch -lijk (“-ly, -like”).
Suffix[edit]
-like
- Resembling, having some of the characteristics of (used to form adjectives from nouns).
- a childlike voice
- snake-like coils of rope
- 1996, Kevin Siembieda, Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game page 128 under "Dark"
- Damage: Those with normal, human-like vision are blind
- 2012 May 20, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club[1]:
- What other television show would feature a gorgeously designed sequence where a horrifically mutated Pierre and Marie Curie, their bodies swollen to Godzilla-like proportions from prolonged exposure to the radiation that would eventually kill them, destroy an Asian city with their bare hands like vengeance-crazed monster-Gods?
- (dialectal) Used to form adverbs from adjectives or nouns; alternative of -ly.
Usage notes[edit]
Words formed with like are often spelled with a hyphen. This is particularly the case with British spelling more so than American spelling, where it is somewhat more common to form the word without a hyphen.
Synonyms[edit]
Note: the suffixes below cannot necessarily replace "-like", but are also used to form words having the same sense as words formed using "-like".
- quasi-, para-, -esque, -ish, -ly, -oid, -form/-iform, -some, -y; -ass (restricted to casual registers)
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
having some of the characteristics of (used to form adjectives from nouns)
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Further reading[edit]
- “-like”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- “-like”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- “-like” (US) / “-like” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
- “-like”, in Oxford Learner's Dictionaries
- -like in Britannica Dictionary
Anagrams[edit]
Middle English[edit]
Etymology 1[edit]
Suffix[edit]
-like
- Alternative form of -ly (“adjectival suffix”)
Etymology 2[edit]
Suffix[edit]
-like
- Alternative form of -ly (“adverbial suffix”)
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *leyg- (like)
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms derived from Old Norse
- English doublets
- English lemmas
- English suffixes
- English adjective-forming suffixes
- English productive suffixes
- English terms with quotations
- English dialectal terms
- Middle English lemmas
- Middle English suffixes