What Does "the likes of" Work Here?

'The likes of which' is a fairly common expression often used when someone wants to convey a forceful idea. It means 'similar to' or 'kind of' (to a degree), a category. In a non-forceful setting; "The Spartan were a tribe of men, the likes of which have not been seen since their defeat at Thermopylae". Here 'the likes of which' implies that they belong to a special category.

I’ll try to explain it in a different way to see if that helps. For instance, take the phrase “World War 2 was a war the likes of which we’d never seen before”. It essentially means World War 2 was so bad/tragic/etc that it outshines any war that came before it. Until World War 2, we’d never seen how bad a war can get. You can also use it positively. Example: “This is an amazing movie the likes of which you’ve never seen”. Here, it means the movie is so good that it would be impossible to find another movie out there to compare it to. The phrase is usually hyperbolic, if that makes sense. Not always, but in some cases. I’d say Elon’s quote falls into the hyperbolic/exaggerating category.

"like" in this context is used as a word to compare one thing go another. Another example of this would be "The angry man spoke like a lion" here you compare the angry speech to the roaring of a lion. In the original post it says "the likes of which you can't comprehend" meaning that there is nothing to compare the war to. I hope this is helpful.

People here have defined the expression quite clearly for you, but so far I haven't seen anyone mention that Musk's grammar is dodgy. He's missing a comma after the word "issue", which would clarify that he's referring to a war the likes of which we've never seen, not an *issue* the likes of which we've never seen. We can tell that from the context, but his sentence is very poorly written.

For what it's worth I think this is grammatically incorrect. It would be correct to say: > A war the likes of which you cannot comprehend This means a war that you can't comprehend the scale or nature of. But he's saying "I'll go to war [...] the likes of which [...]" which doesn't make sense. He should have said "in a way" or something.

It doesn't, Elon doesn't know how to use it.

"The likes of which" essentially is a fancier way of saying "what it's like". He is saying that we cannot comprehend what the war is going to be *like*, and that there is probably nothing *like* it that we've seen before. "Like" is a noun here, but it's very related to its more common meaning of comparison.

*We don't want the likes of you around here = We don't want people like you around here.* In most cases this has a negative connotation.

Possibly worth pointing out that despite the good explanations of “the likes of” here, that Elon didn’t use the phrase properly. It should be “I will cause a war on this issue the likes of which”. The phrase needs a noun to be “like” and “go to war” is a verb.

It’s a way of categorizing something. A dramatic way of saying “the kind of”, “sort of”, “the quality of”, “the degree of”.

"The likes of" means "similar things to", and the closely related "the like" means "similar things". These are set phrases; both of these use substantivized adjectives, which are somewhat disfavored in modern English. "The likes of" is also often used in an emphatic sense, as "I never want to see the likes of you again" or "the likes of which were never found again".

"The likes of which" means "anything like it" or it can be used as an intensifier. In this case, it is not referring to something like it, it's referring to it (him going to war on the issue). Like saying, "I will go to war on this issue, in a manner you cannot possibly comprehend." If you say "He went to war on this issue, the likes of which we have not seen before or since," you're saying "He went to war on this issue, and we have not seen anything like it before or since."