Other forms: likenesses
A likeness is the way one thing resembles another. A striking likeness, a family likeness, no likeness at all.
A likeness is also a portrait: a good likeness, meaning the picture looks like the person, which was the whole test before photography. In image rights, somebody's likeness is their appearance, and using it without permission is a legal matter. Note that in the likeness of is a formal and biblical construction; and that likeness and similarity mean the same thing with likeness the warmer of the two.
1nounlikenessThe way one thing resembles another.
“There's a strong likeness between the two sisters, especially around the eyes.”
2nounportraitA portrait.
“The artist painted a fine likeness of the old mayor for the town hall.”
likeness is a resemblance or portrait.
Old English licness is like plus -ness, both native. Like itself comes from a word meaning body or form, which is why likeness once meant having the same shape rather than merely resembling.
Proto-West Germanic
*galīkanassī — likeness
Old English
līcness
Middle English
liknesse
English, today
likeness
Built from
From Middle English liknesse, from Old English līcness, ġelīcnes (“the quality of being like or equal; likeness; image; copy; pattern; example; parable”), from Proto-West Germanic galīkanassī (“likeness”), equivalent to like + -ness. Cognate with West Frisian likenis (“likeness”), Dutch gelijkenis (“similarity; likeness; parable”), German Low German Glieknis (“form; semblance; likeness; parable”), German Gleichnis (“form; semblance; image; likeness; parable; simile”). The verb is derived from the noun. Compare also Old Norse líkneskja (“figure, image, appearance, likeness”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA