Is "Likely" conditional?

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• goingfor99th Free Trial Member

  July 2017 3072 karma

  Did you sit the June test?

  Hehe.
• 10000019 Alum Member

  July 2017 3279 karma

  “likely” is a synonym for “most" ~ Graeme Blake
• 2 Likes

  Accounts Playable Live Sage ⭐

  July 2017 edited July 2017 3107 karma

  @USER123456 said:
  “likely” is a synonym for “most" ~ Graeme Blake

  I'd agree if "likely" is used in this context:

  "Event X is likely to happen." I'd say that that means there is over a 50% chance of event happening, so it's a quasi-most statement.

  However, if "likely" is used like this:

  "Event X is more likely to happen than Event Y is to happen," then I wouldn't say it's a "most" statement. This means that the probability of X happening is simply more than the probability of Y happening. It could be X has a 2% chance of happening and Y a 1% chance of happening; X and Y could still be extremely unlikely to occur.