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# likely

«likely» in Mova's school 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#m1)

2) Suitable or seeming right: "a likely place". [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#m2)

3) As an adverb, probably: "She will most likely win." [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#m3)

### 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 →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#x1)
- Rolling a number less than 6 on a die is likely. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#x2)
- He is likely to be late. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#x3)
- That's a likely place to find frogs. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#x4)
- She will most likely win the race. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#x5)
- Accidents are more likely when you rush. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#x6)
- "Will you lend me your bike?" "Not likely!" [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#x7)
- A tossed coin is equally likely to land on heads or tails. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#x8)
- "How am I likely to be cheerful? [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/#x9)

### 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.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/52-elections-crime-the-weather-breaking-news-and-news-vs-opinion/20/)
- [A chatbot's friendly greeting is the kind of reply its training makes likely; it does not mean someone is alive inside it.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/1-what-is-ai/7/)
- [Phone keyboards and chatbots predict which words are most likely to come next.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/1-what-is-ai/8/)
- [It writes an answer piece by piece, each time choosing a likely next word.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/2-guessing-the-next-word/8/)
- [A language model guesses likely next words, and you also follow rules you can show, check your work and learn from tests.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/ai/29-who-you-are-being-wrong-and-learning/12/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «likely» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/L/likely/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.