Is likable a word

If you are describing someone with whom you enjoy spending time and whose company is pleasant, should you use likable or likeable to describe this person?

At first glance, you might choose likeable, simply because it is less likely to be confused with lickable. It might be the case that you find someone whose company you enjoy lick-able, but you should not write about these feelings in professional or academic contexts.

Your choice is then between likable and likeable, which are actually two spelling variations of the same word. During the 19th century, American writers developed their own standardized spellings of certain words as part of an attempt to form a uniquely American style of English.

Continue reading to learn more about likable and likeable.

What is the Difference Between Likeable and Likable?

In this post, I will compare likable vs. likeable. I will use each of these words in at least one example sentence, so you can see how they appear in context.

Plus, I will show you how to use a mnemonic device to choose either likable or likeable correctly each time.

When to Use Likable

What does likable mean? Likable is an adjective that means pleasant to be around. It can be a synonym of words like pleasant and attractive.

If you like someone, you enjoy his or her company and have fun spending time with this person. Likable, then, is literally able to be liked.

People can be likable, but so can other things, like dogs, food items, and places. Most of the time, though, the word is used to describe people with whom you enjoy spending time.

For example,

• “I found the candidate likable, but lacking the necessary qualifications,” said the company’s hiring manager.
• If you want to be a more likable person, you should smile more often, pay attention when someone is talking, and use friendly body language.

Likable is the American English spelling of the word and follows other American words that favor shorter spellings, cancelled/canceled; travelling/traveling, colour/color.

Words with a more direct analogy are livable and lovable, both of which are American spelling. Liveable and loveable are the British counterparts.

When to Use Likeable

What does likeable mean? Likeable is another way to spell the same word. It is the preferred spelling in British English, while American writers are more likely to use likable.

These graphs show the relative usage of likeable vs. likable in published English books since 1800:

American English:

British English:

As you can see, the British have always preferred likeable. Americans developed a preference for likable just before the turn of the 20th century, during a time period when many writers adopted a distinctly Americanized spelling to differentiate themselves from their British brethren.

Trick to Remember the Difference

Since these words are really just two different ways to spell the same word, they are interchangeable in terms of meaning. The spelling you choose depends on your intended audience.

• If you are writing for American readers, choose likable.
• If you are writing for readers who are primarily British, choose likeable

Since likeable has an extra E, like England, it’s not hard to remember when to use this word.

Summary

Is it likeable or likable? Likeable and likable are spelling variations of a word that means pleasant or attractive.

• Likable is the American spelling.
• Likeable is the British spelling.

There is no difference in meaning between the two.

Asked by: Claire Barrows

Score: 4.5/5
(27 votes)

adj. readily or easily liked; pleasing.

What do you call a likeable person?

pleasant, nice, friendly, agreeable, affable, amiable, genial, civil, personable, charming, popular, clubbable, good-natured, engaging, warm, pleasing, appealing, endearing, convivial, congenial, winning, delightful, enchanting, attractive, winsome, fetching, captivating, lovable, adorable, sweet.

What is the opposite of likeability?

Noun. Opposite of the quality of having a friendly and pleasant manner. disagreeableness. unfriendliness. unpleasantness.

Is Likeableness a word?

lik·a·ble. adj. Pleasing; attractive. lik′a·ble·ness, like′a·ble·ness n.

Is likeability important at work?

While we all have individual personalities – some more endearing than others, make no mistake your likability in the workplace can and likely will have a significant impact on your career trajectory. … Likability may not be a skill you can learn in school, but it’s definitely a valuable quality in the workplace.

21 related questions found

Asked by: Carroll Will

Score: 4.3/5
(71 votes)

When to Use Likeable

Likeable is another way to spell the same word. It is the preferred spelling in British English, while American writers are more likely to use likable.

Which is correct likeable or likable?

You can spell this adjective with or without an e: likable and likeable are both correct.

How do you spell likability?

adj. readily or easily liked; pleasing. lik′a•ble•ness, lik`a•bil′i•ty, n.

What is meaning of likable?

: having qualities that bring about a favorable regard : pleasant, agreeable the most likable character in the play.

How do you describe a likeable person?

genial, attractive, winsome, engaging.

29 related questions found

приятный, привлекательный, милый, располагающий

прилагательное

- привлекательный, милый, приятный, располагающий, внушающий симпатию

Примеры с переводом

Возможные однокоренные слова

like  — любить, подобный, подобно, так, как бы, как будто, очень
likely  — вероятный, возможный, подходящий, вероятно
likeness  — подобие, сходство, образ, портрет, обличье, личина

приятный, привлекательный, милый, располагающий

прилагательное

- привлекательный, милый, приятный, располагающий, внушающий симпатию

Словосочетания

an attractive and likable young man — привлекательный и располагающий к себе молодой человек  
likable and lookable lass — физически привлекательная молодая женщина  

Примеры с переводом

Возможные однокоренные слова

liking  — симпатия, вкус, расположение, склонность
dislikable  — неприятный, вызывающий неприязнь

For those interested in a little info about this site: it’s a side project that I developed while working on Describing Words and Related Words. Both of those projects are based around words, but have much grander goals. I had an idea for a website that simply explains the word types of the words that you search for — just like a dictionary, but focussed on the part of speech of the words. And since I already had a lot of the infrastructure in place from the other two sites, I figured it wouldn’t be too much more work to get this up and running.

The dictionary is based on the amazing Wiktionary project by wikimedia. I initially started with WordNet, but then realised that it was missing many types of words/lemma (determiners, pronouns, abbreviations, and many more). This caused me to investigate the 1913 edition of Websters Dictionary — which is now in the public domain. However, after a day’s work wrangling it into a database I realised that there were far too many errors (especially with the part-of-speech tagging) for it to be viable for Word Type.

Finally, I went back to Wiktionary — which I already knew about, but had been avoiding because it’s not properly structured for parsing. That’s when I stumbled across the UBY project — an amazing project which needs more recognition. The researchers have parsed the whole of Wiktionary and other sources, and compiled everything into a single unified resource. I simply extracted the Wiktionary entries and threw them into this interface! So it took a little more work than expected, but I’m happy I kept at it after the first couple of blunders.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source code that was used in this project: the UBY project (mentioned above), @mongodb and express.js.

Currently, this is based on a version of wiktionary which is a few years old. I plan to update it to a newer version soon and that update should bring in a bunch of new word senses for many words (or more accurately, lemma).

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Last Updated:
12 Apr 2023
— Updated example sentences