like to

like to idiom
Also, liked to. Come close to, be on the point of. For example, We like to froze to death, or He liked to have never got away. This expression, now considered a colloquialism from the American South, dates from the early 1400s and was used several times by Shakespeare.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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