Likable or likeable?
likable is an adjective meaning “Of a person, having qualities tending to result in being liked; friendly…”; likeable is an adjective meaning “Alternative spelling of likable”. Wiktionary gives them as spellings of the same word. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) likeable is about as common as likable.
What is the difference between likable and likeable?
| likable | likeable | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adjective |
| Meaning | USOf a person, having qualities tending to result in being liked; friendly, personable USCapable of, or suitable for, being liked | UKAlternative spelling of likable |
| Example | She's a naturally likable person, with lots of friends | none recorded |
| Forms | likabler, likablest | likeabler, likeablest |
| Pronunciation | /ˈlaɪkəbl̩/ | not recorded |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words | 1.0 times per million words |
Sources: likable and likeable in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of likable and likeable
likable
- 1
USOf a person, having qualities tending to result in being liked; friendly, personable
She's a naturally likable person, with lots of friends
- 2
USCapable of, or suitable for, being liked
likeable
- 1
UKAlternative spelling of likable
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, likable or likeable?
likable appears about once in every 1 million words; likeable 1.0 times per million words.
likable about once in every 1 million wordslikeable 1.0 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search likable vs likeable?
“likable vs likeable” is searched about 70 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“likeable vs likable”, “likable or likeable”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.