had like
English
Verb
had like
- (archaic) Had nearly; (did) not quite (followed by the infinitive).
- 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene i]:
- Wee had likt to haue had our two noses snapt
off with two old men without teeth.
- c. 1603, Walter Raleigh, Apology for the Voyage to Guiana
- [the] report […] had like to have been my utter overthrow
- 1884, Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona
- Ramona had like to have said the literal truth, […] but recollected herself in time.
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References
- like in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913