Dictionary Definition
hardly adv
1 by a small margin; "they could barely hear the
speaker"; "we hardly knew them"; "just missed being hit"; "had
scarcely rung the bell when the door flew open"; "would have scarce
arrived before she would have found some excuse to leave"-
W.B.Yeats [syn: barely,
just, scarcely, scarce]
2 almost not; "he hardly ever goes fishing"; "he
was hardly more than sixteen years old"; "they scarcely ever used
the emergency generator" [syn: scarcely]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
From hard + -ly.Adverb
- Firmly, vigorously, with strength or
exertion.
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays,
vol. 1 p. 148:
- Let him hardly be possest with an honest curiositie to search out the nature and causes of all things [...].
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays,
vol. 1 p. 148:
- Harshly, severely.
- I can't really deal hardly with people.
- With difficulty.
- He made his way hardly through the enemies to the castle.
- Barely, only just, almost not.
- I hardly ever watch television.
- I hardly think they'll come in this bad weather.
- I hardly ever watch television.
Usage notes
In sense 4. it is grammatically a negative word. It therefore collocates with ever rather than never.- Compare example sentence with I almost never watch television
Translations
barely, only just
- Catalan: a penes
- Danish: knap
- Dutch: nauwelijks
- Esperanto: apenaŭ
- Faroese: neyvan
- Finnish: tuskin, töin tuskin, hädin tuskin
- French: guère, à peine
- trreq Friulian
- German: kaum
- Icelandic: með naumindum, naumlega, ekki meira en svo, varla, tæplega, með erfiði, með fyrirhöfn
- Ido: apene
- trreq Interlingua
- Italian: appena
- Kurdish: ,
- trreq Occitan
- Portuguese: quase não
- Romanian: abia
- Russian: едва
- Spanish: apenas
- Swedish: knappast, knappt
- Yiddish: קוים (koym)
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
a bit, a little, abnormally, arduously, at infrequent
intervals, badly, barely, bitterly, burdensomely, by a hair, by
an ace, by no means, closely, difficultly, energetically, ever so
little, exiguously,
faintly, feebly, fiercely, firmly, forcefully, forcibly, frenziedly, furiously, hardly ever,
harshly, imperfectly, impliably, inappreciably, inconsequentially,
incredibly, inexorably, inflexibly, infrequently, insignificantly,
ironhandedly,
just, just a bit, keenly, laboriously, lightly, little, madly, meagerly, might and main,
mightily, minimally, minutely, narrowly, nearly, negligibly, not hardly, not
often, not quite, obdurately, onerously, only, only just, painfully, powerfully, rancorously, rarely, relentlessly, rigidly, rigorously, roughly, scantily, scarce, scarcely, scarcely ever,
seldom, seldom if ever,
severely, slightly, solid, solidly, sorely, sparsely, stiffly, stormily, strenuously, strongly, tant soit peu, the
hard way, toilsomely,
triflingly, turbulently, unbendingly, uncommonly, uncompromisingly,
uncustomarily,
unexpectedly,
unfrequently,
unnaturally,
unoften, unordinarily, unrelentingly, unusually, unyieldingly, very seldom,
vigorously, violently, weakly, wildly, with difficulty, with
much ado