-like

See also: like, liké, lìkè, and lǐkē

English

Etymology

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

-like

1. Resembling, having some of the characteristics of (used to form adjectives from nouns).

   Even at 13 years old, she still had a childlike voice.

   I saw the snake-like coils of the garden hose peeking out from under the deck.

   • 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?

2. (dialectal) Used to form adverbs from adjectives or nouns; alternative of -ly.

Usage notes

• 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.

• Though -like shares many meanings with -ly, -ly is most often paired with animate nouns while -like pairs with both animate and inanimate nouns. Thus one hears manly and friendly more often than  manlike and  friendlike. Exceptions such as childlike must therefore be learned by heart.

Synonyms

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

English terms suffixed with -like

Translations

having some of the characteristics of (used to form adjectives from nouns)

• Arabic: كَـ (ar) (ka-)
• Armenian: -կերպ (-kerp), -նման (-nman)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: -般 (-bān), 如- (rú-), 類- / 类- (lèi-)

• Dutch: -achtig (nl)
• Esperanto: -eca
• Finnish: -moinen (fi), -llinen (fi), -n kaltainen
• French: -in (fr) m, -ine (fr) f
• Georgian: -ებრ (-ebr), -ებრი (-ebri), -ვით (-vit)
• German: -artig (de), -ähnlich
• Hungarian: -szerű (hu), -os (hu), -as (hu), -es (hu), -ös (hu), -s (hu)
• Icelandic: -legur (is) m
• Japanese: ^{(please verify)} 様の (yō no), っぽい (ja) (ppoi), みたい (ja) (mitai)
• Latin: -oides (in some words derived from Greek)
• Malayalam: പോലത്തെ (pōlatte)
• Persian: ـدیس (-dis), ـوش (-vaš)
• Russian: -подо́бный (-podóbnyj) (used with connecting "-о-")
• Spanish: algo (es), cuasi- (es)
• Swedish: -lik (sv), -aktig (sv), -artad (sv)
• Turkish: -ca (tr), -ça (tr), -ce (tr), -çe (tr), -si (tr), -sı (tr), -su (tr), -sü (tr), -imsi (tr), -ımsı (tr), -umsu (tr), -ümsü (tr)

Further reading

• “-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

• Kiel, Kile, kile, liek

Middle English

Etymology 1

Suffix

-like

1. Alternative form of -ly (“adjectival suffix”)

Etymology 2

Suffix

-like

1. Alternative form of -ly (“adverbial suffix”)