unlikely
part of speech
adjective (unlikely, more unlikely or unlikelier, most unlikely or unlikeliest)
meaning for a pupil
1) Unlikely means probably not going to happen or probably not true. tree →
2) Unlikely means surprising or not what you would expect: «an unlikely friendship», «an unlikely hero». tree →
sense in the lessons
In maths lessons on chance and probability, events are placed on a scale: impossible, unlikely, even chance, likely, certain. «It is unlikely to snow in summer in Sydney.» A probability close to 0 is unlikely. In stories «an unlikely hero» is someone small or shy who saves the day. Phrases: «highly unlikely», «unlikely to», «it is unlikely that», «in the unlikely event».
examples
- It is not unlikely that originally only the Sefer Yetzirah had been ascribed to Joseph ben Uziel, but as there were several other works in the same volume, some careless copyist attributed them all to him. (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914)) tree →
- It's unlikely to rain today. tree →
- Rolling a six three times in a row is unlikely. tree →
- They became unlikely friends — a dog and a duck. tree →
- It is unlikely that he forgot. tree →
- In the unlikely event of a fire, use the stairs. tree →
- Put «unlikely» on the probability line. tree →
- The mouse was an unlikely hero. tree →
note
Not an adverb, even though it ends in -ly: «it is unlikely», not «he ran unlikely». Maths: unlikely ≠ impossible — an unlikely event can still happen. Probability scale: 0 impossible, near 0 unlikely, 1/2 even chance, near 1 likely, 1 certain.
In the corpora
- One extra pinch of food is very unlikely to kill a fish; an honest mistake is not the same as meaning harm.
- No humans have yet gone to Mars, and a crewed landing is unlikely before the 2030s, whatever some headlines say.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «unlikely» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.