likely

«likely» in Mova's judaism dictionary: Probably going to happen or be true: "It's likely to rain." — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (likely, more likely/likelier, most likely/likeliest); adverb (likely — probably)

meaning for a pupil

1) Probably going to happen or be true: "It's likely to rain." tree →

2) Suitable or seeming right: "a likely place". tree →

3) As an adverb, probably: "She will most likely win." tree →

sense in the lessons

In maths probability, words show chance: impossible, unlikely, even chance, likely, certain; "likely" means more than half the chance. In science, scientists say what is likely from evidence. In safety: think about what is likely to happen. Phrases: more likely, most likely, unlikely, not likely!, as likely as not.

examples

• The entire Greek account of Pythagoras and his philosophy is unreliable and most likely is a forgery. (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914)) tree →
• Even if such an early date cannot be established, it appears likely that scholars will hereafter attribute the discovery of positional arithmetic to the Babylonians instead of the Hindoos." (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914)) tree →
• It is likely to snow tomorrow. tree →
• Rolling a number less than 6 on a die is likely. tree →
• He is likely to be late. tree →
• That's a likely place to find frogs. tree →
• She will most likely win the race. tree →
• Accidents are more likely when you rush. tree →
• "Will you lend me your bike?" "Not likely!" tree →
• A tossed coin is equally likely to land on heads or tails. tree →
• "How am I likely to be cheerful? tree →

note

Despite -ly, "likely" is mainly an adjective: "It is likely." "Likely to + verb": "likely to rain". In probability, likely = between even chance (1/2) and certain (1); unlikely = between impossible (0) and 1/2.

In the corpora

• An amber weather warning means bad weather is likely and people should be ready; it does not promise a snow day.
• A chatbot's friendly greeting is the kind of reply its training makes likely; it does not mean someone is alive inside it.
• Phone keyboards and chatbots predict which words are most likely to come next.
• It writes an answer piece by piece, each time choosing a likely next word.
• A language model guesses likely next words, and you also follow rules you can show, check your work and learn from tests.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «likely» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.