Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use likelihood in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun

Likelihood means the probability of a specified outcome; the chance of something happening; probability; the state or degree of being probable. Example: “In all likelihood the meeting will be cancelled.”

Examples of likelihood by meaning

nounThe probability of a specified outcome; the chance of something happening; probability; the state or degree of being...

  • In all likelihood the meeting will be cancelled.
  • The likelihood is that the inflation rate will continue to rise.
  • While starting early can increase your likelihood of attaining millionaire status, the investments you choose play an equally important role.2017 May 16, Maurie Backman, “Here's how to become a millionaire on $56,000 a year”, in CNN Money, archived from the original on 21 Apr 2025

More sentences with likelihood

  • Thus, over the scale time, there is an e-fold likelihood of increase as compared to decrease.From the entry e-fold
  • In all likelihood, it has very little to do with whether you're getting laid or not.2023 August 7, Joseph Allen, “Some Incels Are Bummed About Their Canthal Tilt and Talking About It on TikTok”, in Distractify, archived…. From the entry canthal tilt
  • The U.S. justice system uses an algorithm called COMPAS to determine a criminal's likelihood to re-offend.2018 January 29, Sophie Kleber, “As AI Meets the Reputation Economy, We're All Being Silently Judged”, in Harvard Business Review…. From the entry defendant
  • With negative reinforcement, by removing something aversive, the likelihood that the behavior will occur again is increased.2015, Ilona Rodan, Sarah Heath, editors, Feline Behavioral Health and Welfare, Elsevier Health Sciences, →ISBN, page 46. From the entry negative reinforcement
  • This suggests the likelihood that cleistogamy arose in those species because cross-pollination was not always effective.2001, Richard Dwight Porcher, Douglas Alan Rayner, A Guide to the Wildflowers of South Carolina, University of South Carolina, page 47. From the entry cleistogamy
  • Which means, in all likelihood, that many of them will never find the real you.1999 September 16, Daniel Rutter, “Gibbering clones the future of Usenet?”, in Australian IT. From the entry sporgery
  • For foreign journalists, sociologists, and historians, the likelihood of misunderstating real limitations to democracy are even greater.1996, John Markoff, Waves of Democracy: Social Movements and Political Change, page 106. From the entry misunderstate
  • But more realistically, there is a greater likelihood that you can become a multithousandaire.1987, Lawrence A. Krause, Sleep-Tight Money: A Guide to Managing Your Money Safely and Achieving Financial Peace of Mind, Simon and…. From the entry multithousandaire
  • This will allow drivers to slow down in places where wildlife may appear, thus reducing the likelihood of wildlife crashes.2020 January 20, “Traffic signs have been set up on the road to eastern side”, in World Wide Fund for Nature, archived from the original…. From the entry Baruun-Urt
  • Tonight we've just had a lengthy discussion about the likelihood of dreams being a portal to some external, alternate reality.2019, L.D. Crichton, All Our Broken Pieces. From the entry inception
  • And unlike modern military boots, these Caligae were specifically designed to reduce the likelihood of blisters forming during these forced marches.2018 July 30, Billy Crone, The Satanic War on the Christian, volume 4, Lulu.com, page 118. From the entry caliga
  • With positive reinforcement, by adding something the animal desires, the likelihood that the behavior will occur again is increased.2015, Ilona Rodan, Sarah Heath, editors, Feline Behavioral Health and Welfare, Elsevier Health Sciences, →ISBN, page 46. From the entry positive reinforcement
  • The simpler the brand, the lesser the likelihood that it will blotch and be unsightly and hard to read.2012, Sue Weaver, Storey's Guide to Raising Miniature Livestock, →ISBN. From the entry blotch
  • Second, there must be a feasible intervention that, when targeted to people with predisease, effectively reduces the likelihood of developing disease.2011, Anthony J. Viera, “Predisease: when does it make sense?”, in Epidemiologic Reviews, volume 33, number 1, →DOI, →PMID, pages 122–134. From the entry predisease
  • Put differently, attention to norms and rules did not increase the likelihood that a student would choose to upstand or intervene.2010, Lonnie R. Sherrod, Judith Torney-Purta, Constance A. Flanagan, Handbook of Research on Civic Engagement in Youth. From the entry upstand
  • Morgan Chase, began using mathematical functions called Gaussian copulas to estimate the likelihood of corporations’ dying in unison.2009 March 10, Dennis Overbye, “Mathematical Model and the Mortgage Mess”, in New York Times. From the entry copula
  • However, archaeological evidence also points to the likelihood of “direct jumps” by Saladoid migrants from South America to the northern Caribbean.2009, Basil A. Reid, Myths and Realities of Caribbean History, page 100. From the entry precolonial
  • The CLR pumps messages automatically during a wait, reducing the likelihood of this but it can show up in native code.2008, Joe Duffy, Concurrent Programming on Windows. From the entry pump
  • Compared to normative stayers, increasing hyperactivity and maltreatment during childhood were associated with a likelihood of being a late onsetter.2008, Anna Hyun, Factors Associated with Stability and Change in Offending Among School Enrolled Adolescents and Their Transitions into…. From the entry onsetter
  • Since then house prices have gone chicken oriental so the likelihood of me moving into my own place is very small.2003 November 24, Beer Monster, “Re: just curious.........”, in alt.culture.ukc.misc (Usenet). From the entry chicken oriental
  • At this point, a judgment is made about the likelihood of reabuse or reneglect if the child is left at home.1997, California. Department of Finance. Performance Review Unit, A Performance Review: California's Child Welfare System (page 94). From the entry reabuse
  • Still others have a series of psychological tests to pregage the likelihood of success of the joint venture.1970, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Small Business. Subcommittee on Urban and Rural Economic Development, The Impact of…. From the entry pregage
  • Soviet deception may increase the likelihood of undetected non-compliance, although it also risks a re-escalation of the crisis.1946, Rand Corporation, The Rand Paper Series, self-published, page 5. From the entry re-escalation
  • It follows from what has been said that a vague thought has more likelihood of being true than a precise one.1921, Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind. From the entry vague
  • The incubators are built in remote fastnesses, where there is little or no likelihood of their being discovered by other tribes.1912 February–July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Under the Moons of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC…. From the entry fastness
  • Therefore, we anticipate consumers' perceived value and satisfaction with retailtainment will be different for consumers with high versus low likelihood to use instore technologies.2023, Theodore Tarnanidis, Maro Vlachopoulou, Jason Papathanasiou, Influences of Social Media on Consumer Decision-Making Processes in the…. From the entry instore
  • “Just leave them under the seat, okay,” she says, knowing that in all likelihood I won’t be able to leave this party.2020 September 22, Justin A. Reynolds, chapter 92, in Early Departures, New York, N.Y.: Katherine Tegen Books, →ISBN. From the entry which
  • The excess returns were explained by a common risk factor driven by fluctuations in cryptoasset trade volume and by the likelihood of cryptoexchange shutdowns.2020, Sinan Krückeberg, Peter Scholz, “Decentralized Efficiency? Arbitrage in Bitcoin Markets”, in Financial Analysts Journal, volume 76…. From the entry cryptoexchange
  • A review published by the Oil and Gas Authority concluded it was impossible to predict the likelihood or scale of earthquakes triggered by fracking.2019 November 3, Robin McKie, “Shale gas fracking wasted ‘millions of taxpayers’ cash’, say scientists”, in The Guardian. From the entry fracking
  • It is the very absence of strategy—systemic “strategylessness”—that in all likelihood will become the signature of U.S. foreign policy in the years to come.2017 March 2, Wolfgang Seibel, “Donald Trump — Aggravator or Catalyzer of the European Crises?”, in American-German Institute. From the entry strategylessness
  • In all likelihood Chinese boats would exit through the Luzon Strait, the narrow sea between Taiwan and the Philippine island of Luzon.2014, James R. Holmes, “Strategic Features of the South China Sea”, in Naval War College Review, volume 67, number 2, page 45. From the entry Sanya
  • We raise our estimate of the likelihood of Greek EA exit (‘Grexit’) to 50% over the next 18 months, from 25-30% previously.2012 February 6, Willem Buiter, Ebrahim Rahbari, “Rising Risks of Greek Euro Area Exit”, in Willem H. Buiter, archived from the original…. From the entry Grexit
  • The reason for the increasing likelihood of what some are terming a 'Brixit' (short for British exit, like Grexit for Greek exit) is quite simple.2012 June 22, Iain Murray, “Bring on the ‘Brixit’: EU withdrawal would bring benefits for both Britain and the US”, in Daily Mail…. From the entry Brixit
  • A high environmental impact of an industry significantly reduces the likelihood of a firm to be classified as a bioneer or ecopreneur.2009, Gary D. Libecap, Frontiers in Eco-Entrepreneurship Research, →ISBN, page 140. From the entry bioneer
  • Factors like birth order and birth month play a small role, at best, in the likelihood of reaching advanced age, and are overwhelmed by others.2005 October 30, Henry Fountain, “For Centenarians, It All Begins at Birth”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times…. From the entry birth month
  • There is a likelihood that there will be an explosion of "slumburbs," as cities will be unable to provide basic services, much less information-related services.2000, Patrick J. DeSouza, Economic Strategy and National Security: A Next Generation Approach. From the entry slumburb
  • When lowering the height of Deciduous trees, especially under utility lines, utilize drop crotch pruning where possible to minimize the likelihood of suckering.1980, Arboriculture Specifications, page 13. From the entry drop crotch

Meaning of likelihood

  1. noun The probability of a specified outcome; the chance of something happening; probability; the state or degree of being probable.
  2. noun The probability that some fixed outcome was generated by a random distribution with a specific parameter.
  3. noun Likeness, resemblance.

Full definition of likelihood

Questions about likelihood in a sentence

How do you use likelihood in a sentence?
Likelihood is used as a noun. For example: “In all likelihood the meeting will be cancelled.”
What is a short sentence with likelihood?
“In all likelihood the meeting will be cancelled.”
What does likelihood mean?
Likelihood means the probability of a specified outcome; the chance of something happening; probability; the state or degree of being probable.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: likelihood (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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