Word.ws English Dictionary

belike

belike verb: to make like; simulate.

Verb (1)

belike (third-person singular simple present belikes, present participle beliking, simple past and past participle beliked)

  1. (transitive) To make like; simulate.
  2. (transitive) To be like; resemble.
    • The most beautiful passages of Arnaut are in the canzo beginning: Sweet cries and cracks and lays and chants inflected By auzels who, in their Latin belikes.2000, Helen May Dennis, Ezra Pound and poetic influence

Verb (2)

belike (third-person singular simple present belikes, present participle beliking, simple past and past participle beliked)

  1. (impersonal) To be pleasing to; please.
    • Yea," said King Arthur, " it belikes me more than any horse that I ever beheld before." " Then," quoth Queen Morgana, "consider it as a gift of reconciliation betwixt thee and me. …"1903, The story of King Arthur and his knights
  2. (transitive) To like; be pleased with.

Noun

belike (plural belikes)

  1. An object of affection or liking.
    • She will always be one of my belikes.

Adverb

belike (not comparable)

  1. (Northern England, archaic, dialectal, especially) Likely, probably, perhaps, haply.
    • It seems, you lov'd not her, to leave her token: / She's dead, belike.c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • For that reason, belike, Homer feigns the three Graces to be linked and tied hand in hand, because the hearts of men are so firmly united with such graces.1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition III...

Examples of belike in a sentence

  • Do as they do and belike thou shalt gain what may further thy return voyage to thy native land."1885–1888, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, “Night 558”, in A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’...
  • And when the pedants bade us mark / What cold mechanic happenings / Must come; our souls said in the dark, / "Belike; but there are likelier things."1904, Gilbert K[eith] Chesterton, “To Hilaire Belloc”, in The Napoleon of Notting Hill, London; New York, N.Y.: John Lane, The Bodley Head...
  • Some night-bird, belike, or a sea-gull squalling below the headland.1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 39:

Forms of belike

Verb
third-person singular presentbelikes
present participlebeliking
past participlebeliked
pastbeliked
Noun
pluralbelikes

Origin of belike

From Middle English beliken (“to simulate, feign”), equivalent to be- + like.

From be- + like.

Words formed from belike

Questions about belike

What does belike mean?
Belike means to make like; simulate.
How do you use belike in a sentence?
Do as they do and belike thou shalt gain what may further thy return voyage to thy native land."
What part of speech is belike?
Belike can be a verb, a noun or an adverb.
What is the past tense of belike?
The past tense of belike is beliked.

Words near belike in the dictionary

  1. believing one's ears
  2. believing one's eyes
  3. believingly
  4. believings
  5. belight
  6. belike
  7. beliked
  8. belikely
  9. belikes
  10. beliking
  11. Beliliou

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: belike (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “belike.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/belike. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.