[UN-1 12. Cf. prec. and next.]
† 1. Unsuitableness. Obs.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, I. 16. For I þat god of loues seruantz serue Ne dar to loue for myn vnliklynesse.
† 2. Unseemliness, unbecomingness. Obs.
1456. Sir G. Haye, Law Arms (S.T.S.), 190. Nevertheles and he saw … him mak grete repaire till his hous, and unlyklynes, he mycht mak him … exhortacioun to nocht mak sik unlikly repaire.
1685. H. More, Paralip. Prophet., xxxiv. 306. What unlikeliness or Indecorum is it, that Proclamation be made who he is, that shall … [open] the Book?
† 3. Dissimilarity, discrepancy. Obs.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., II. 143. It shall be sufficient that we wey the wordes of one of them, to attain the meaning of them both. Albeit, there is some vnlikelinesse betwene them.
1604. T. Wright, Passions, V. iv. 189. Likelinesse or vnlikelinesse are also relatives, and consequently belong to this same predicament.
c. 1620. Bp. Hall, Contempl., N. T., II. ii. Neither was there more unlikelinesse in their disposition and cariage, than similitude in their function.
1730. Bailey (fol.), Dissimilitude, unlikeliness.
4. Unlikelihood, improbability.
1614. Raleigh, Hist. World, III. vii. § 4. 82. Whether Themistocles perceiued much vnlikelinesse of good successe [etc.].
1690. Locke, Human Understanding, IV. xv. § 2. 332. There being degrees herein, from the very neighbourhood of Certainty and Evidence, quite down to Improbability and Unlikeliness.
1841. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), VI. 160. The unlikeliness that he should get what he asked for.
1881. Saintsbury, Dryden, 72. The unlikeliness of his ever having been a very fervent Roundhead.
