Word.ws English Dictionary

likened

likened is the simple past and past participle of liken.

Meaning of liken

Verb

liken (third-person singular simple present likens, present participle likening, simple past and past participle likened)

  1. (transitive) Followed by to or (archaic) unto: to regard or state that (someone or something) is like another person or thing; to compare.
    • The physics teacher likened the effect of mass on space to an indentation in a sheet of rubber.
    Antonyms:
    contrast, unliken
  2. (also, rare, reflexive, transitive) Chiefly followed by to: to make (oneself, someone, or something) resemble another person or thing.
    • Speech is reason's brother, and a kingly prerogative of man, / That likeneth him to his Maker, who spake, and it was done.1838, Martin Farquhar Tupper, “Of Speaking”, in Proverbial Philosophy: A Book of Thoughts and Arguments, Originally Treated, London: Joseph Rickerby, […], →OCLC, stanza 1, page 133
    Antonyms:
    unliken
  3. (rare, transitive) To represent or symbolize (something).
  4. (intransitive, obsolete) Followed by to: to be like or resemble; also, to become like.

Questions about likened

What is likened the simple past and past participle of?
Likened is the simple past and past participle of liken.

Words near likened in the dictionary

  1. likembes
  2. likeminded
  3. likemindedness
  4. liken
  5. likenable
  6. likened
  7. likenedst
  8. likeness
  9. likenessed
  10. likenesses
  11. likenessing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: likened (page history and authors); liken (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: “likened.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/likened. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.