LIKENESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does likeness mean? 

• LIKENESS (noun)
  The noun LIKENESS has 2 senses:

1. similarity in appearance or character or nature between persons or things

2. picture consisting of a graphic image of a person or thing

  Familiarity information: LIKENESS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LIKENESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Similarity in appearance or character or nature between persons or things

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

alikeness; likeness; similitude

Context example:

man created God in his own likeness

Hypernyms ("likeness" is a kind of...):

similarity (the quality of being similar)

Attribute:

alike; like; similar (having the same or similar characteristics)

dissimilar; unalike (not alike or similar)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "likeness"):

comparability; compare; comparison; equivalence (qualities that are comparable)

mirror image; reflection; reflexion (a likeness in which left and right are reversed)

naturalness (the likeness of a representation to the thing represented)

resemblance (similarity in appearance or external or superficial details)

spitting image (a perfect likeness or counterpart)

Antonym:

unlikeness (dissimilarity evidenced by an absence of likeness)

Derivation:

like (resembling or similar; having the same or some of the same characteristics; often used in combination)

like (having the same or similar characteristics)

like (conforming in every respect)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Picture consisting of a graphic image of a person or thing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

likeness; semblance

Hypernyms ("likeness" is a kind of...):

icon; ikon; image; picture (a visual representation (of an object or scene or person or abstraction) produced on a surface)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "likeness"):

Identikit; Identikit picture (a likeness of a person's face constructed from descriptions given to police; uses a set of transparencies of various facial features that can be combined to build up a picture of the person sought)

portrait; portrayal (any likeness of a person, in any medium)

 Context examples 

I never saw such a likeness.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

It was a startling likeness, and necessarily had a startling look.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Her face was like her mother's; a youthful unfurrowed likeness: the same low brow, the same high features, the same pride.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But here she was obliged to look and consider and study for a likeness.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another opportunity.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

I was painfully aware of my likeness to a scarecrow.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

She returned it almost instantly, acknowledging the likeness.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

To my mother, all my clothes, except the blue apron with pockets—also my likeness, and my medal, with much love.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He was extraordinarily receptive and responsive, while his imagination, pitched high, was ever at work establishing relations of likeness and difference.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He changed his appearance as far as he could, and trusted that the likeness, which you could not fail to observe, would be put down to a family resemblance.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)