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We can use 'would' to refer to 'what is very likely. We use it to show probability. These are some examples that I took from some dictionaries: He would be a teacher.

The guy on the phone had a Southern accent." "That would be Tom."

I think my swimming pool would [=could] hold 20,000 gallons of water.

So my question is can we use 'would have' to refer to those things which we think was very likely in the past?

As generally we use 'would have'in conditionals to talk about something that did not happen in the past.

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    Yes. If you wanted to buy a Rolls-Royce 10 hp car in 1904, it would have cost you £395.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Dec 31, 2023 at 15:13
  • When you say we use 'would have' in conditionals to talk about something that did not happen in the past do you mean the non-standard and, to many people, wrong, US usage in place of the past perfect (e.g. 'I wish you would have told me you were a vegetarian'?
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Dec 31, 2023 at 15:29
  • Which would have got you about 200,000 pounds of tea if purchased retail in 16 ounce quantities, or probably close to a million pounds of tea if purchased wholesale by the shipload.
    – TimR
    Commented Dec 31, 2023 at 15:35
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    Yes. Since all schoolboys learned Latin in those days, it would have been easy for him to understand the inscription.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Dec 31, 2023 at 16:22
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    Many of you would have... is often just a less common (read, "more affected") version of Many of you will have... - which as previously pointed out, is an unnecessarily complex alternative to Many of you [have] verbed. Don't spend too much time on it. You never "need" to use would like this.
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Dec 31, 2023 at 19:25

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It would have been a 'roo you encountered, not a yeti. Yetis are rare in Australia.

The past likeliness can be relative to an unlikeliness.

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