Emily Dickinson Lexicon

LIKE, n. [elliptically, for like thing, like event, like person.]

1. Some person or thing resembling another; an equal. The like may never happen again. He was a man, take him for all and all, / I shall not look upon his like again. – Shak.
2. Had like, in the phrase, “he had like to be defeated,” seems to be a corruption; but perhaps like here is used for resemblance or probability, and has the character of a noun. At any rate, as a phrase, it is authorized by good usage.