likeness

plural likenesses

1. The state or quality of being like or alike.

   I bear no likeness to my parents whatsoever.

   1 more example

   Erich thought he observed a likeness between the stranger and a relative of Walther; this led them into the chapter of likenesses, and the strange way in which certain forms repeat themselves in families, often most distinctly in the most remote ramifications.

   1822, Ludwig Tieck, translated by Connop Thirlwall, The Pictures

   Synonyms: similitude, resemblance, similarity

2. Appearance or form; guise.

   A foe in the likeness of a friend

   1 more example

   And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

   Genesis, I, 26

3. That which closely resembles; a portrait.

   How he looked, the likenesses of him which still remain enable us to imagine.

   4 more examples

   At this moment Mr. Glentworth's eye fell on a little pencilled sketch of himself. In her joy at seeing the original, Isabella had forgotten the copy. Again a bright scarlet passed over her face; and her companion, from that necessity of saying something which originates more subjects of conversation than any thing else, observed, "I did not know you had a talent for taking likenesses."

   1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 141

   In a major step, the NCAA Division I Council voted Monday to support an interim policy that would allow college athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL) without violating NCAA rules until federal legislation or new NCAA rules are adopted.

   2021 June 28, Homero De la Fuente, “NCAA takes big step toward allowing athletes to profit from name, image or likeness”, in CNN, archived from the original on 24 Sep 2021

   Donald Trump has decided instead that the NEH’s funds would be better spent on his own dream project: a sprawling sculpture garden with 250 likenesses of people he deems “American heroes.”

   2025 April 15, Gal Beckerman, “Looks Like Mussolini, Quacks Like Mussolini”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 16 Apr 2025

   In response to the backlash, OpenAI announced last week that it would begin allowing representatives of “recently deceased” public figures to request that their likeness be blocked from Sora videos.

   2025 October 17, Niamh Rowe, “‘Legacies condensed to AI slop’: OpenAI Sora videos of the dead raise alarm with legal experts”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

present singular third person likenesses · participle present likenessing · participle past likenessed · past likenessed

1. archaictransitiveTo depict.

   I have this morning received the photographs of my two boys. The eldest is very well likenessed: the other, perhaps, not so well.

   1857, April 25, Alfred Lord Tennyson, letter to Reginald Southey, in Cecil Y. Lang and Edgar F. Shannon Jr. (editors), The Letters of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Volume II: 1851-1870, Belknap Press (1987), page 171

   1 more example

   Every member of the family [of General Grant] is as faithfully likenessed as the photographs, which were given to the artist from the hands of the General himself, have power to express.

   1868, November, advertisement, in Arthur's Home Magazine, Volume XXXII, Number 21, after page 320