Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • auxiliary verb Used with a past infinitive or with to and a simple past form to indicate being just on the point of or coming near to having done something in the past.
  • intransitive verb To find pleasant or attractive; enjoy.
  • intransitive verb To want to have.
  • intransitive verb To prefer.
  • intransitive verb To feel about; regard.
  • intransitive verb To believe or predict that (a certain competitor) will win a contest.
  • intransitive verb To perform well under (a given condition) or using (a given feature).
  • intransitive verb Archaic To be pleasing to.
  • intransitive verb To have an inclination or a preference.
  • intransitive verb Scots To be pleased.
  • noun Something that is liked; a preference.
  • idiom (like it or not) No matter how one might feel.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • As; as if.
  • Of similar form, appearance, or quality; of corresponding kind, amount, extent, degree, etc.; corresponding; equal or equivalent; analogous; agreeing in some noticeable respect: as, territory of like extent; two men of like pursuits and tastes.
  • Having resemblance; similar in any respect; resembling: followed by to or a dative case (sometimes by as), the word or phrase governed by to being, however, often omitted: as, they are as like (to each other) as two peas.
  • Likely; liable.
  • Synonyms Allied, cognate, analogous, parallel.
  • noun A person or thing resembling another; a counterpart; a resemblance; a similar character, condition, or example.
  • In the same or a similar manner; equally; correspondingly.
  • In the manner of; in the same way as.
  • Likely; probably.
  • As it were; so to speak: used after clauses or phrases with a signification similar to that of like suffixed to nouns. See like, adjective, 2.
  • See fun.
  • noun A liking; a fancy; an inclination: used chiefly in the phrase likes and dislikes.
  • As well as; as also.
  • noun Body; form; the body of a human being or of any animal.
  • noun A dead body; a corpse.
  • To regard or describe as resembling; liken; compare.
  • To be likely: chiefly or only in the preterit liked, equivalent to had like. See like, adjective
  • To please; be pleasing to; be agreeable to; suit; satisfy: used impersonally, and followed by an object, originally dative, of the person.
  • To regard with favor; be well affected toward; be pleased with; take pleasure in.
  • To agree with, as food or drink.
  • To be suitable or agreeable; give satisfaction.
  • To be pleased or suited; choose: used absolutely, but formerly sometimes followed by of.
  • To thrive; grow.
  • noun In golf, a stroke which equalizes the number played by the other side.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To suit; to please; to be agreeable to.
  • transitive verb To be pleased with in a moderate degree; to approve; to take satisfaction in; to enjoy.
  • transitive verb obsolete To liken; to compare.
  • noun That which is equal or similar to another; the counterpart; an exact resemblance; a copy.
  • noun A liking; a preference; inclination; -- usually in pl..
  • noun (Golf) The stroke which equalizes the number of strokes played by the opposing player or side.
  • intransitive verb To be pleased; to choose.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To have an appearance or expression; to look; to seem to be (in a specified condition).
  • intransitive verb colloq. To come near; to avoid with difficulty; to escape narrowly. Cf. Had like, under Like, a.
  • intransitive verb [Obs.] to be pleased with.
  • adverb In a manner like that of; in a manner similar to.
  • adverb In a like or similar manner.
  • adverb Likely; probably.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English liken, to compare, from like, similar; see like.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English liken, from Old English līcian, to please; see līk- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English liken, from Old English līcian ("to please, be sufficient"), from Proto-Germanic *līkōnan, *līkānan (“to please”), from Proto-Indo-European *līg- (“image, likeness, similarity”). Cognate with Dutch lijken ("to seem"), German gleichen ("to resemble"), Icelandic líka ("to like"), Norwegian like ("to like"), Albanian ngjaj ("I resemble, I'm alike") from archaic nglâj.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old English ġelīċ by shortening, influenced by Old Norse líkr. Cognate with alike; more distantly, with lich and -ly.

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Examples

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  • October 22, 2007

  • Valley Speak

    As an adverb: I, like, died!

    As a quotative: She was, like, no way!

    Like can also be used to communicate a pantomime, or to paraphrase an explicitly unspoken idea or sentiment: I was like (speaker rolls eyes).

    As a hedge: I have, like, no money.

    As a discourse particle or interjection: I, like, don't know what to do.

    It is also becoming more often used at the end of a sentence, as an alternative to you know: I didn't say, like, anything.

    October 22, 2007

  • Shaggy: "Like, let's get outta here, Scoob!"

    October 22, 2007

  • Oh, there's an obscure usage you missed: "I like ice cream."

    It indicates favor. Mostly obsolete.

    October 22, 2007

  • Thanks, uselessness. Just so. :-)

    October 22, 2007

  • to fall in like (for love):

    "Before I discovered you could set up a "disk browser" in TextWrangler, I fell in like with TextMate. I seem to be in good company because I keep recognizing TextMate in screencasts." from http://blog.contenthere.net/2008/06/i-use-this.html

    June 24, 2008

  • Okay--which one of you Wordies is behind this movement?

    Anyone seen chained_bear lately?

    August 3, 2008

  • There must be multiple theses on this phenomenon by now. Can anyone direct me?

    n.b. skip: not me. But I'll donate.

    August 3, 2008

  • Skipvia: I confess. Chained_bear and I are campaigning to ban the word from the English language.

    August 4, 2008

  • We are?

    August 4, 2008

  • Yes! Yes, remember? We...uh...had that meeting? About not liking "like"? *kicks c_b under the table*

    August 5, 2008

  • OWW! What'dja do that for?! *whips cupcake at reesetee's head*

    *followed closely by a marshmallow*

    August 5, 2008

  • A marshmallow? You threw a marshmallow at me? Of all the....

    *indiscriminately flings cupcake at chained_bear's snout*

    August 5, 2008

  • Corners!

    August 5, 2008

  • You'd think these two were married, the way they carry on.

    August 5, 2008

  • Is it amusing to anyone else that at the bottom of that poster the "e" has been left out of "awareness"?

    August 5, 2008

  • Ha! I didn't notice that!

    August 5, 2008

  • *takes reesetee's indiscriminate, icing-smeared cupcake and rubs it in reesetee's EAR*

    *topped with a marshmallow!*

    August 5, 2008

  • *Grabs an overripe banana and mashes it into chained_bear's fur*

    *topped with a marshmallow*

    August 5, 2008

  • *roars and runs off to bathe in a river and get that disgusting shit offa me*

    August 5, 2008

  • Good catch, pleth. I was focused on that..."thing" in the lower left corner. Is that, like, the worst logo ever??

    August 5, 2008

  • Just looked at it again. Not only is "awareness" missing the first E, but "Academy" is misspelled. Spec-TAC-ular.

    *fur dripping*

    August 5, 2008

  • The state of being AWAR?

    Acutally, the OED lists awar as Old English and one of many variants of owhere, 'anywhere'.

    An acadamy is perhaps an academy for dames.

    August 6, 2008

  • The way teens talk, like, serves a purpose.

    December 14, 2008

  • Does it, like, bother you that the researcher's first name is, like, Muffy?

    December 16, 2008

  • As a teenage girl, I say to that article, pfft!

    January 28, 2009

  • Like has been looked up 974 times, favorited 0 times, listed 45 times, commented on 27 times, and has a Scrabble score of 8.

    July 24, 2010

  • Jinkies!

    "2. A dead body; a corpse."

    --Century Dictionary

    March 23, 2011

  • I rike you.

    March 23, 2011

  • Hm--rike, rake, roke.

    March 23, 2011

  • Noun'd by Facebook.  👍

    April 19, 2016