unlikely

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
Ten of 11 experts said it was at best "unlikely" - or less than a one-third chance - that the world would manage to limit warming to a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) rise above pre-industrial levels.

View all »
Definitions (11)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. adjective Not likely; improbable.
  2. adjective Not promising; likely to fail.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • But an armed skirmish is unlikely, analysts say, though the North Korean crew may have rifles. —  Durangoherald.com
  • Either seem unlikely, which is why in the coming weeks, Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of former President Jack Kennedy, will probably be named to replace Hillary Clinton in the Senate. —  Long Island Business News
  • While Israel's hilltop settlements in the occupied territories-violating over 30 UN Security Council resolutions since 1968-are "facts on the ground" that make the two state peace solution unlikely, their hilltop settlement in the center of the world's only superpower makes it equally unlikely that Israel's right-wing government will feel compelled to end their "self defensive" brutalization of the Palestinian people, which has been condemned by the international community (UN, EU) as crimes against humanity. —  WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
  • If finding a buyer for West Ham in the next 60+ days is unlikely, then one option that Gudmundsson has is to sell players in order to raise cash. —  Soccer Blogs - latest posts
  • Challenges include introducing shellfish restoration in locations as unlikely, and possibly uninviting, as wastewater treatment plants.
 

Tags

unlikely hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 94 times.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

improbable ·  likely ·  bizarre ·  fortunate ·  unpleasant ·  impossible ·  risky ·  plausible ·  fantastic ·  excite ·  desirable ·  diverse
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English unlikely, unlikly; from un- + likely.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

/ənˈlaɪkli/
by American Heritage

Charts

frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word about once a day.

Recently looked up

three-quarter · scary · persiflage · likelihood · apple

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

wub wub · merch · these grunts every eight hours · haul it off to our darkest dungeon · send for a doctor