Resembling or having the qualities of a canon, such as being rule-like, authoritative, or relating to church law.
Compound of 'canon' plus the Old English '-like' suffix (meaning 'similar to'). This construction became productive in English by the 1400s, allowing any noun to become an adjective describing similarity.
English speakers naturally create words like this without thinking—adding '-like' is one of our most productive tools, which is why Shakespeare could coin 'star-like' and modern kids create 'vibe-check-like' with the exact same grammar rule.
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