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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

liken.

Followed by to or (archaic) unto: to regard or state that (someone or something) is like another person or thing; to compare.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈlaɪk(ə)n/Received-Pronunciation/ˈlaɪkən/General-American
  1. Followed by to or (archaic) unto: to regard or state that (someone or something) is like another person or thing; to compare.

    transitive
    The physics teacher likened the effect of mass on space to an indentation in a sheet of rubber.
  2. Chiefly followed by to: to make (oneself, someone, or something) resemble another person or thing.

    also · rare · reflexive · transitive
  3. To represent or symbolize (something).

    rare · transitive
  4. Followed by to: to be like or resemble; also, to become like.

    intransitive · obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English liknen (“to be comparable; to compare (often disparagingly); to make (someone) equal to another person; to regard (something) as equal to another thing; to regard (something) as likely; to resemble; to take (something) as a substitute; to apply, be adapted or suitable; to tend (to sin)”) [and other forms], from liken (“to be comparable; to compare; to be appropriate; to form”), from lik (“alike, analogous, similar; appropriate, suitable; equal; homogeneous; identical, the same; indicative; likely (to be or do something), probable; possible; simultaneous; more or most like (?)”) + -en (suffix forming infinitives of verbs). Lik is derived from Old English ġelīċ (“like, similar”), from Proto-Germanic *galīkaz (“like, similar; equal”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *leyg- (“like, similar; even, level”). The English word is analysable as like (adjective) + -en (suffix forming verbs with the sense ‘to make [adjective]’).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.