alike

From Middle English alike, alyke, alyche, aleche, and earlier ilike, ilik, ylike, yliche, ylich, elik, ȝelic, from Old English ġelīċ (“like; alike; similar; equal”) and Old English onlīċ, anlīċ ("like; similar; equal"; > Middle English anlike, onlich (compare German ähnlich), reinforced by Old Norse álíkr, from Proto-West Germanic *galīk, from Proto-Germanic *galīkaz (“alike, similar”).

Cognate with Scots elyke, alyke (“like, alike”), Saterland Frisian gliek (“like, alike”), West Frisian lyk, gelyk (“like, alike”), Dutch gelijk (“like, alike”), German Low German liek, gliek (“like, alike”), German gleich (“equal, like”), Danish lig (“alike”), Swedish lik (“like, similar”), Norwegian lik (“like, alike”), Icelandic líkur (“alike, like, similar”). Equivalent to a- (Etymology 3) +‎ like. Compare also West Frisian allyk (“all the same, alike”).

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /əˈlaɪk/
• Rhymes: -aɪk

• Audio (US)

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alike (comparative more alike, superlative most alike)

1. Having resemblance or similitude; similar; without difference.

   The twins were alike.

alike (comparative more alike, superlative most alike)

1. In the same manner, form, or degree; in common; equally.

   We are all alike concerned in religion.

   • 1910, Emerson Hough, chapter II, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, OCLC 639762314:

     Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.

• share and share alike

• Kalie, alkie

From Middle English ylike, from Old English ġelīc, from Proto-West Germanic *galīk.

alike

1. alike
   • 1867, CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, line 9:

     and whilke we canna zei, albeit o' 'Governere,' 'Statesman,' an alike.

     and for which we have no words but of 'Governor,' 'Statesman,' &c.

• Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 114