Word.ws English Dictionary

unlike

/ʌnˈlaɪk/

unlike adjective: not like; dissimilar (to); having no resemblance; unalike.

Adjective

unlike (comparative more unlike, superlative most unlike)

  1. Not 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
  2. Unequal.
    • They contributed in unlike amounts.
    • The earth is unlike the wire in size, resistance, and carrying capacity. Hence, telephone service calk for two wires of equal size, resistance, and carrying capacity.1906, Railway master mechanic, volume 30, page 111
  3. (archaic) Not likely; improbable; unlikely.

Preposition

unlike

  1. Different 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.
    • Hal kept pace beside her in his ambling, arm-swinging way. 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
  2. In 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.”, in Canada-United States Law Journal, volume 25, page 125
  3. Not typical of one's character or personality.
    • Being late is unlike him.

Noun (1)

unlike (plural unlikes)

  1. Something that is not like something else; something different.
    • If the beings are many, then they must be likes and unlikes. But this is impossible, for unlikes cannot be likes, and likes cannot be unlikes.2012, J. Bogen, J. E. McGuire, How Things Are: Studies in Predication and the History of Philosophy and Science

Verb

unlike (third-person singular simple present unlikes, present participle unliking, simple past and past participle unliked)

  1. To dislike.
    • The incounters of the times have been nothing favourable and prosperous for the invention of knowledge, so as it is not only the daintiness of the seed to take, and the ill mixture and unliking of the ground to nourish or raise this plant, but the ill season also of the weather, by which it hath...1603, Francis Bacon, “Of the Interpretation of Nature”, in The Works of Francis Bacon, translation of original by Valerius Terminus, page 136
    • We are not insensible of the fact that these principles ever will be unliked by the men of tho world1862, The Scottish Congregational Magazine, page 247
  2. (social media) To cancel a "like" action.
    • I unliked the post after I found out the author was racist.
    • Facebook, for instance, allows you to register approval for a posted message in a very concrete way, by clicking a thumbs-up like button. Toggling off the button results in unliking your previously liked item. Note that this is different from disliking something, since unliking simply returns you...2009, Ben Zimmer, “On Language: The Age of Undoing”, in The New York Times Magazine, 2009 September 20, page MM8
    1. (broadly, social media) To withdraw support or enjoyment for.
      • My comment was more of a backhanded slap at Stern Pinball's Facebook "presence", specifically the garbage "cheap heat" posts. […] It's so inane (and now, so constant) that I wound up "unliking" stern pinball entirely.2010 June 25, TheKorn, “Re: Pinball: RGP and/or Facebook”, in rec.games.pinball (Usenet)

Noun (2)

unlike (plural unlikes)

  1. (Internet) The 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
    • On Facebook, users can also hide anyone in their network, including companies, from their News Feed, which is worse than an unlike, as brands cannot measure how many people still like them but have hidden their status updates […]2014, Ekaterina Walter, Jessica Gioglio, The Power of Visual Storytelling, page 13

unlike meaning in Tamil and Arabic

unlike in Tamil

போலல்லாமல்

unlike in Arabic

dissimilar
مُخْتَلِف muḵtalif
different from
عَلَى عَكْس ʕalā ʕaks, بِخِلَاف bi-ḵilāf

Examples of unlike in a sentence

  • 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:
  • The actual economy effected is different for vessels of unlike speed and types.1928, Emory Richard Johnson with Grover Gerhardt Huebner and George Lloyd Wilson, Principles of transportation:
  • Thus two objects of unlike size but equal weights are judged to differ in weight, the smaller being the heavier (size-weight illusion).2006, George W. Hartmann with Albert T. Poffenberger, Gestalt Psychology: A Survey of Facts and Principles, page 86:
  • 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:

All 40 example sentences with unlike

Forms of unlike

Adjective
comparativemore unlike
superlativemost unlike
Noun
pluralunlikes
Verb
third-person singular presentunlikes
present participleunliking
past participleunliked
pastunliked

Origin of unlike

From Middle English unlic, unlich, from Old English unlīċ, unġelīċ (“unlike, different, dissimilar, diverse”), from Proto-Germanic *ungalīkaz. By surface analysis, un- + like. Cognate with Dutch ongelijk, German ungleich, Old Norse úlíkr (see there for North Germanic descendants).

From Middle English unliken, unlyken, equivalent to un- + like.

Words formed from unlike

Words that rhyme with unlike

33 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about unlike

What does unlike mean?
Unlike means not like; dissimilar (to); having no resemblance; unalike.
What is unlike in Tamil?
Unlike in Tamil is போலல்லாமல். See Unlike meaning in Tamil.
How do you use unlike in a sentence?
Commodities utterly unlike each other in all apparent physical properties, such as color, weight, size, shape, substance,
What part of speech is unlike?
Unlike can be an adjective, a preposition, a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce unlike?
Unlike is pronounced /ʌnˈlaɪk/.

Words near unlike in the dictionary

  1. unlignified
  2. unlikability
  3. unlikable
  4. unlikableness
  5. unlikably
  6. unlike
  7. unlike-minded
  8. unlikeability
  9. unlikeable
  10. unlikeableness
  11. unlikeably

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unlike (page history and authors); unlike (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-unlike.ogg.

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