dislike

Formsdislikes, disliking, disliked

Pluraldislikes

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To feel aversion or antipathy toward a person or thing; to regard them without any liking.

   She disliked her new manager from the very first meeting.

   Most critics dislike films that rely on tired cliches.

   Similarhate, detest, loathe, despise, resent

   Oppositelike, love, enjoy, admire

   Note

   The everyday construction puts the person who feels the aversion in the subject position. It sits comfortably with intensifying adverbs. Michael Robbins, writing in Rail in 1951, says the railway historian John Francis "cordially disliked the aristocracy in general," an adverb of warmth oddly lending force to aversion. Older English could run the other way, in the obsolete "displease" use.

2. 2
   nouncountable or uncountable

   An attitude or feeling of distaste or aversion toward a person or thing.

   Her dislike of confrontation kept her quiet during the meeting.

   There was a mutual dislike between the two rivals.

   Similaraversion, distaste, antipathy, animosity, hostility

   Oppositeliking, fondness, affection, love

   Note

   Every sense of the word comes from one simple formation: dis- added to like, reversing it. As a noun of feeling it takes of before its object. H. A. Vallance, writing in Railway Magazine (1957), mentions Queen Victoria's dislike of high speed, which kept the royal specials slow on the Deeside line. When the dislike becomes the thing itself, something you can count and list, it shifts to a thing one dislikes.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   Something toward which a person feels distaste or aversion.

   His list of dislikes was longer than his list of pleasures.

   Crowded trains remained a lifelong dislike for her.

   Similaraversion, bugbear, peeve, hate

   Oppositelike

   Note

   Mostly a plural word, and mostly half of a pair: likes and dislikes is the set phrase for a person's tastes in both directions. The singular is possible, as in a lifelong dislike of crowded trains, but it singles out one aversion rather than surveying a person's preferences as a whole.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To register a vote showing disapproval of, or lack of support for, something posted online.

   Thousands of users disliked the trailer within hours of its release.

   If enough people dislike a comment, it sinks to the bottom.

   Similardownvote

   Oppositelike, upvote

   Note

   This is the verb behind the online vote, and it takes the post itself as its object: users dislike a trailer, a comment, a video. Its past participle therefore counts clicks rather than feelings, as when Rebecca Black's "Friday" is called one of the most disliked videos in YouTube history. Out of context, that phrase reads just as naturally in the older sense of general aversion.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A single vote registering disapproval of, or lack of support for, something posted online.

   The channel hid its dislikes to avoid discouraging creators.

   Each dislike nudged the post further down the feed.

   Similardownvote, thumbs-down

   Oppositelike, upvote, thumbs-up

   Note

   Internet vocabulary, and the countable opposite of a like: one vote, from one user, against one post. Unlike the feeling, it is a tally rather than an attitude, so it gets counted and displayed, as a video's dislikes or a post's dislikes. A click need not mean much aversion at all. It can record outright disapproval or simply a lack of support.

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