Word.ws English Dictionary

had like

had like verb: had nearly; (did) not quite (followed by the infinitive).

Verb

had like

  1. (archaic) Had nearly; (did) not quite (followed by the infinitive).
    • Wee had likt to haue had our two noses snapt
      off with two old men without teeth.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]...
    • [the] report […]had like to have been my utter overthrowc. 1603, Walter Raleigh, Apology for the Voyage to Guiana

Questions about had like

What does had like mean?
Had like means had nearly; (did) not quite (followed by the infinitive).
What part of speech is had like?
Had like is a verb.

Words near had like in the dictionary

  1. had it out for
  2. had it rough
  3. had Jesus in one's heart
  4. had kittens
  5. had legs
  6. had like
  7. had little time for
  8. had mercy
  9. had more chins than a Chinese phone book
  10. had more chins than a Chinese phonebook
  11. had more chins than Chinatown

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: had like (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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