liking

Plurallikings

1. 1
   nounusually singular

   A feeling of fondness or preference for a particular person or thing.

   Over the years she developed a real liking for old jazz records.

   His liking for solitude meant he rarely joined the group on weekends.

   Similarfondness, taste, preference, affection, partiality

   Oppositedislike, aversion, distaste

   Note

   A noun that usually takes for: a liking for improvisation, a real liking for old records. It counts as easily as it generalizes, so a plural is natural. John Stuart Mill's On Liberty (1859) sets "the likings and dislikings of society" side by side as the forces that shape the rules imposed by law and opinion. The Old English ancestor, līcung, already meant "pleasure" and "liking".

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of like.

   Reviewers are liking the redesigned app more than the original.

   He caught himself liking the slower pace of country life.

   Note

   Two words share this spelling, and they came by different roads. The verb form descends from the Old English participle līciende, while the noun of fondness comes from līcung. To tell them apart, look at what follows. The verb takes its object directly, as in liking the slower pace. The noun needs for, as in a liking for jazz. With be, the verb form makes the progressive: reviewers are liking the app.

3. 3
   nounarchaicuncountable

   Approval, or the state of regarding something as satisfactory.

   The proposal at last received the king's liking and was set in motion.

   He sought the elders' liking before announcing the betrothal.

   Note

   An older trading phrase keeps this meaning: goods bought on liking are taken on approval, to be kept only if they please. The sense fits the word's Old English source, līcung, which meant "pleasing" and "gratification" as well as fondness. In modern prose it reads as archaic. On approval does the same work, and approval or consent replaces the noun elsewhere.

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