What is the meaning of [Like the Dickens]

A lot; as in ‘hurts like the dickens’.
This phrase has nothing to do with Charles Dickens. Dickens is a euphemism, specifically a minced-oath, for the word devil, possibly via devilkins. Shakespeare used it in ‘the Merry Wives of Windsor, 1600:

I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of.