Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use unlike in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, preposition, noun

Unlike means not like; dissimilar (to); having no resemblance; unalike. Example: “The brothers are quite unlike each other.”

Examples of unlike by meaning

adjectiveNot like; dissimilar (to); having no resemblance; unalike.

  • The brothers are quite unlike each other.
  • It may be conjectured with some confidence that it is very unlike what is called the Wild and sometimes the Woolly West, which I did not see.1927, G. K. Chesterton, What I saw in America, page 45

adjectiveUnequal.

  • They contributed in unlike amounts.
  • The earth is unlike the wire in size, resistance, and carrying capacity.1906, Railway master mechanic, volume 30, page 111
  • Commodities utterly unlike each other in all apparent physical properties, such as color, weight, size, shape, substance,1909, John Spargo, Socialism: a summary and interpretation of socialist principles, page 241

prepositionDifferent from; not in a like or similar manner.

  • The disgust I felt after watching last weekend's horror movie was unlike anything I had felt before.
  • He walked unlike other men she knew, like someone who had never carried a briefcase.1995 Fall, Marcia Guthridge, “Henry V, Part 2”, in Paris Review, volume 37, number 136, page 176
  • These drugs work unlike any medicine ever created.1999 December, Joe Oldham, “Design & Engineering Awards 2000”, in Popular Mechanics, volume 176, number 12, page 67

prepositionIn contrast with; as opposed to.

  • Claudia hardly ever drinks beer or wine, unlike Phillip, for whom the bar is practically a second home.
  • Canadians can not bring a "national" piece of litigation, unlike what can be done in the United States.1999, Philip Spencer with Glenn M. Zakaib[b], “Product liability aspects of the risks of technological change - a Canadian perspective.”...
  • Unlike the elbows-out jostling in New York, there will be no campaigning:2009 February 10, Nelson Pressley, “Signature Laps The Field With 39 Hayes Noms”, in Washington Post, page C01

prepositionNot typical of one's character or personality.

  • Being late is unlike him.

verbTo dislike.

  • "He doesn't seem to be unliked by anyone, no." Scott's lawyerly impulse was to dismiss any and all advice or speculation made by this woman who used "unliked" rather than "disliked"2006, Steve Amick, The Lake, the River & the Other Lake, page 38
  • Certainly nobody spoke to me, though plenty of them gave me an unliking look.2007, Marvin Kaye, The Fair Folk

verbTo cancel a "like" action.

  • I unliked the post after I found out the author was racist.
  • Toggling off the button results in unliking your previously liked item.2009, Ben Zimmer, “On Language: The Age of Undoing”, in The New York Times Magazine, 2009 September 20, page MM8

nounThe act of withdrawing one's like from a post on social media.

  • Getting an unlike for every 20 likes is common and not something you need to be losing sleep over.2012, Jesse Cannon, Todd Thomas, Get More Fans, page 552

More sentences with unlike

  • Steel shot, unlike lead shot, avoids contaminating the land with spent lead.From the entry shot
  • Unlike you, I’ve never caused any accidents — my record is still clean!From the entry clean
  • Opening night for the new production had an electricity unlike other openings.From the entry electricity
  • The new album has a very unproduced sound, unlike their earlier efforts.From the entry unproduced
  • Unlike the average vehicle, cash delivery vans are ironclad and almost unstoppable.From the entry ironclad
  • Queen Elizabeth II reigned as queen regnant, unlike her mother Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.From the entry regnant
  • Unlike coaxial cable where the outer conductor is grounded, twisted pair is usually ungrounded.From the entry ungrounded
  • Eublepharid geckos lack adhesive toepads and, unlike other geckos, have movable eyelids.From the entry toepad
  • Unlike extractive methods, abstractive summarization generates new phrasing.From the entry abstractive
  • Homer makes Aphrodite the daughter of Zeus, unlike Hesiod who depicted her as born from the sea foam.From the entry make
  • Even if the twins are identical, they are still not the same person, unlike Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens.From the entry same
  • Unlike the other candidates, I'm not a politician.From the entry politician
  • Unlike general lossless data compression algorithms, succinct data structures retain the ability to use them in-place, without decompressing them first.From the entry succinct
  • Unlike lists, tuples are not formed by consing.From the entry tuple
  • Unlike most Web-based discussion forums, traditional Usenet newsgroups are unmoderated.From the entry unmoderated
  • Asian dragons, unlike their European counterparts, are anguinine in appearance.From the entry anguinine
  • Unlike school-based boys’ love stories, mature BL focuses on adult men dealing with work, relationships, and social pressure.From the entry mature BL
  • Metal glasses, unlike those based on silica, are electrically conductive, which can be either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on the application.From the entry glass
  • Unlike most aircraft, the B-52's fully-steerable landing gear allows it to land crabbed and stay crabbed throughout rollout without destroying its tires.From the entry crabbed
  • Unlike the cortex, which has mostly immature T cells, or thymocytes, the paracortex has a mixture of immature and mature T cells.From the entry paracortex
  • Unlike other octopus species, which are normally solitary, the larger Pacific striped octopus has been reported as forming groups of up to 40 individuals.From the entry larger Pacific striped octopus
  • Unlike chimpanzees, whose females have bright red swollen buttocks when ovulating, females in humans evolved to have concealed ovulation, and do not have any perceptible signs that indicate their fertility.From the entry concealed ovulation
  • Unlike the Apollo astronauts, who were all white men, this mission sets a number of firsts: Mr.2026 April 1, Kenneth Chang, “Artemis II Completes First Day of Its NASA Lunar Mission”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry deep space

Meaning of unlike

  1. adjective Not like; dissimilar (to); having no resemblance; unalike.
  2. adjective Unequal.
  3. adjective Not likely; improbable; unlikely.

Full definition of unlike

Questions about unlike in a sentence

How do you use unlike in a sentence?
Unlike is used as an adjective, preposition and noun. For example: “The brothers are quite unlike each other.”
What is a short sentence with unlike?
“Being late is unlike him.”
What does unlike mean?
Unlike means not like; dissimilar (to); having no resemblance; unalike.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unlike (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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Cite this page: “How to use unlike in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/unlike. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.