Dictionary entry

Liking (2)

Webster's Dictionary 1913

Lik″ing, n. 1. The state of being pleasing; a suiting. See On liking, below.

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.

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.

On liking, on condition of being pleasing to or suiting; also, on condition of being pleased with; as, to hold a place of service on liking; to engage a servant on liking.

Would he be the degenerate scion of that royal line... to be a king on liking and on sufferance? Hazlitt.