liking Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a feeling of pleasure and enjoyment
    • I've always had a liking for reading
    • she developed a liking for gin
  2. verb prefer or wish to do something
    wish; like; care.
    • Do you care to try this dish?
    • Would you like to come along to the movies?
  3. verb find enjoyable or agreeable
    like.
    • I like jogging
    • She likes to read Russian novels
  4. verb be fond of
    like.
    • I like my nephews
  5. verb feel about or towards; consider, evaluate, or regard
    like.
    • How did you like the President's speech last night?
  6. verb want to have
    like.
    • I'd like a beer now!

WordNet

Lik"ing participial adjective
Definitions
  1. Looking; appearing; as, better or worse liking. See Like, to look. Obs. Chaucer.
    Why should he see your faces worse liking than the children which are of your sort ? Dan. i. 10.
Lik"ing noun
Definitions
  1. The state of being pleasing; a suiting. See On liking, below. Obs. or Prov. End.
  2. The state of being pleased with, or attracted toward, some thing or person; hence, inclination; desire; pleasure; preference; -- often with for, formerly with to; as, it is an amusement I have no liking for.
    If the human intellect hath once taken a liking to any doctrine, . . . it draws everything else into harmony with that doctrine, and to its support. Bacon.
  3. Appearance; look; figure; state of body as to health or condition. Archaic
    I shall think the worse of fat men, as long as I have an eye to make difference of men's liking. Shak.
    Their young ones are in good liking. Job. xxxix. 4.
    Would he be the degenerate scion of that royal line . . . to be a king on liking and on sufferance ? Hazlitt.

Webster 1913