Talk:likely

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Usage of 'likely' as an adverb is scorned

If you are interested, you can follow (or contribute to) a discussion on Wikipedia, relating to whether it's incorrect to use 'likely' as an adverb. The discussion is in Wikipedia's "Village Pump" section - follow this link: [1].

Quotations removed

I'm removing the following two bits, for reasons that follow later:

1. Likely he'll win the election in this economy.

The first quotation is using the word 'likely' not as an adverb, but as an adjective. To demonstrate my point, please consider swapping 'likely' to 'certain'. In, say, "Death's certain", certain is an adjective; "Death's certainly." (using the adverb) would be ungrammatical. It's just the same for likely - it's being used as an adjective.

The second removed quotation has no stated origin.

Trafford09 (talk) 07:06, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

The second one is a made-up usage example. Those are allowed in the absence of real citations. Equinox ◑ 11:20, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

likely as not

(as) likely as not very probably
Microsoft® Encarta® 2009

--Backinstadiums (talk) 16:37, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

as likely as not ⇒ very probably --Backinstadiums (talk) 10:15, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

What Friend Owl said

I'm not sure any of the current definitions quite matches this usage in Bambi (1942): "I don't believe I've never seen a more likely looking pair of fawns." Thmazing (talk) 00:45, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

attractive; pleasant

attractive and pleasant are not synonyms, so why are both found in the same meaning? --Backinstadiums (talk) 14:39, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Preceded by a modifier

Traditionally, this word had to be preceded by a modifier such as very/quite, they will quite likely require additional supplies . --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:01, 1 August 2021 (UTC)