- like#
- like vb Like, love, eiyoy, relish, fancy, dote are comparable when meaning to be so attracted to a person or thing as to regard him or it with favor.Like (opposed to dislike), the most general and, especially when unqualified, the most colorless of these words, means merely to regard with favor or without the slightest aversion. Therefore, it is chiefly used in reference to persons or things that are pleasing but evoke no great warmth of feeling or urgency of desire{
Sumner whom I admire and dislike; and Shaw of Dunfermline whom I like but do not admire— Laski
}{Arnold, having been poor, liked money and knew the value of it— Osbert Sitwell
}{Hawthorne liked to sit in barrooms; Thoreau would have enjoyed doing so, and liked inns, and farmers, and loafers on the river— Canby
}Love (opposed to hate) implies not only strong liking but ardent attachment and is therefore used with reference to persons or things that arouse the deeper or higher emotions; thus, one likes his neighbors but loves his family; one likes the open country but loves his native land{I like a church; I like a cowl; I love a prophet of the soul— Emerson
}{this peculiar, brooding woman, who loved best in life the sorrow and. high seriousness of things— Balliett
}Love also is often used with reference to trivial objects as an informal intensive of like{I love ice cream
}{old Sarah Battle . . . loved a good game of whist— Lamb
}Eqjoy implies a liking or loving that awakens deep satisfaction and keen delight which may be sensuous or intellectual or often a mingling of the two{we had written our first stories together . . . and together enjoyed the first sweets of success— Rose Macaulay
}{no one but Molny and the Bishop had ever seemed to enjoy the beautiful site of that building,—perhaps no one ever would. But these two had spent many an hour admiring it— Cather
}{it is this specific quality, the power of enjoying things without being reduced to the need of possessing them, which differentiates the aesthetic instinct from other instincts— Ellis
}Relish implies a liking, or sometimes an enjoyment, that arises because the thing relished meets one's approval, satisfies one's taste, or gives one peculiar gratification{his fine taste taught him to relish the beauties of Virgil and Cicero— Hallam
}{a few hundred (not more) choice-loving connoisseurs relish him as the most perfect opportunist in prose— Morley
}Fancy (see also THINK 1) implies a liking for something that corresponds to one's imaginative conception or sometimes one's ideal of what it should be{I never yet beheld that special face which I could fancy more than any other— Shak.
}{he should have yachts, horses, whatever he fancied— Meredith
}or for something that appeals to one's taste or one's eye especially at the moment{while she was ill, she fancied only the most delicate of foods
}Dote, with on or upon, implies an infatuation or a foolish excessive liking or fondness{you dote on her that cares not for your love— Shak.
}{he doted on his daughter Mary; she could do no wrong— Havighurst
}Like love it may be used as an informal intensive of like{two peoples, both of whom love palaver and dote on uproar— Monroe
}{he dotes on bland horrors in food— Liebling
}Analogous words: prefer, *choose, select, elect: admire, esteem, respect, regard (see under REGARD n): *approve, endorse: appreciate, comprehend, *understandAntonyms: dislikelike adj Like, alike, similar, analogous, comparable, akin, parallel, uniform, identical are comparable though seldom strictly synonymous terms which describe the relation between things or persons that closely resemble each other.Like is a general word indicating resemblance or similarity ranging from virtual identity in all characteristics to a chance resemblance in only one{the children were very like
}{his finest intuitions may . . . prove convincing only to himself, or to a limited circle of like minds— Times Lit. Sup.
}Alike is similar to like but is less likely to be used for the chance, farfetched resem-blance and is generally limited to use in a predicate or postposed situation after a compounded substantive modified{their resemblance as brother and sister . . . they looked utterly alike— Sinclair Lewis
}{they were strikingly alike in gifts and tastes— Starr
}Similar often stresses the likenesses between different things, implying that differences may be overlooked or ignored for a time{Virginia creeper or the deceptively similar poison ivy— Amer. Guide Series: Md.
}{regard the attraction which illusion has for us as similar to that which a flame at night has for a moth— Cohen
}{this is not to say that the quarterlies are all alike. But they are as similar as the generation of young writers who contribute to them— R. B. West
}Analogous calls attention to the presence of some likeness which makes it feasible or permissible to draw from it an analogy, a sustained or appropriate comparison{the two new states would have a position analogous to that of British Dominions— Manchester Guardian
}{quite analogous to the emotionalizing of Christian art is the example afforded by the evolution of the Latin hymn— H. O. Taylor
}Comparable implies a likeness on one point or a limited number of points which permits a limited or casual comparison or matching together{the Syrians . . . with Arabian coffee, served thick and strong in tiny cups, as a national drink comparable to the Englishman's tea— Amer. Guide Series: R.I.
}The word is especially likely to be used in connection with considerations of merit, standing, rank, or power{neither in military nor industrial terms is China comparable to the other three great powers— Dean
}Akin, limited to use in postpositive situations, indicates an essential likeness, often of the sort of likeness found in kinship or suggestive of common descent from an original ancestor, prototype, or ancestral stock{the Mongols of Outer Mongolia ... are akin to those of the neighboring Buryat-Mongol A.S.S.R.— Foreign Affairs
}{real nursery tales, akin to Brer Rabbit— Times Lit. Sup.
}{science ... is akin to democracy in its faith in human intelligence and cooperative effort— Muller
}Parallel stresses the fact of similarities over a course of development throughout a history or account or the fact of resemblances or likenesses permitting a setting or bracketing together as though side by side{the almost parallel growth of the Twin Cities— Amer. Guide Series: Minn.
}{parallel to the classic and academic Italian school was one with a more distinctive native feeling— Manship
}{parallel to the powers of the king were the powers of the father in the individual household— Linton
}Uniform suggests a likeness and similarity throughout and a lack of noticeable variation wherever things in question occur or operate{one of the most fundamental social interests is that law shall be uniform and impartial— Cardozo
}{schools ... no longer expect all children to learn to read at a uniform rate— Education Digest
}Identical indicates either the fact of being the same person or thing or, in connection with things copied, reproduced, or repeated, an exact correspondence without detectable or significant difference{George Eliot and Mary Ann Evans were identical
}{the interests of workers and their employers were not altogether identical— Cohen
}{his home life and his life as a man of letters are never identical— Canby
}Antonyms: unlikeContrasted words: *different, diverse, divergent, disparate, various: dissimilar, distinct (see corresponding nouns at DISSIMILARITY): discrepant, discordant, *inconsonant, inconsistent
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
