likely
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
- 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.