| / English Dictionary |
UNLIKELY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Has little chance of being the case or coming about
Example:
a butcher is unlikely to preach vegetarianism
Classified under:
Similar:
far-fetched; farfetched ((of a theory or explanation) highly imaginative but unlikely and unconvincing)
last (most unlikely or unsuitable)
outside; remote (very unlikely)
Attribute:
likelihood; likeliness (the probability of a specified outcome)
Antonym:
likely (has a good chance of being the case or of coming about)
Derivation:
unlikeliness (the improbability of a specified outcome)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Not likely to be true or to occur or to have occurred
Example:
an improbable event
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
supposed (mistakenly believed)
Derivation:
unlikeliness (the improbability of a specified outcome)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Having a probability too low to inspire belief
Synonyms:
improbable; unbelievable; unconvincing; unlikely
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
implausible (having a quality that provokes disbelief)
Derivation:
unlikeliness (the improbability of a specified outcome)
Context examples:
It was unlikely that the doctor should fear death; and yet that was what Utterson was tempted to suspect.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
That would be unlikely — and suspicious — enough.
(The Super-Earth that Came Home for Dinner, NASA)
It is possible but very unlikely that you would get this disease in the United States.
(Leishmaniasis, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
EXAMPLE(S): unrelated, unlikely, possible, probable, definite (for adverse events in respect to CTEP and FAET)related, possibly related, unlikely related, not related (for adverse events in respect to SDTM & E2B)
(Evaluated Activity Relationship Probability Code, NCI Thesaurus/BRIDG)
And while the children tested for the study lived in rural communities, the researchers said it's unlikely children in urban communities are any less at risk.
(Infants, Toddlers at More Risk from Exposure to Second-Hand Smoke than Thought, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
The link is unlikely to be related by obesity, for example, as this study has found no evidence for a causal link between body mass index (BMI) and depression.
(Inflammation links heart disease and depression, University of Cambridge)
But doctors don’t have a way to reliably predict which tumors will progress and which are unlikely to cause problems.
(Biomarker Signatures of Prostate Cancer, NIH)
But methane clouds were thought unlikely in Titan's stratosphere.
(NASA Finds Methane Ice Cloud in Titan's Stratosphere, NASA)
It is also unlikely that the fractures formed by stresses from a large impact because there is no evidence on Ceres of impacts substantial enough to generate fractures of that scale.
(Dawn Explores Ceres' Interior Evolution, NASA)
They say that early in the planet’s history, the rain would have actually been more like fog, so it would unlikely have made much of an impact on the terrain.
(Heavy Rain May Have Once Fallen on Mars, VOA)
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