hardly
∞
1.0
- adverb
- /ˈhɑrdli/
- She was so tired that she could hardly keep her eyes open.
- hardly ever
- hardly notice
- hardly know
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Watch on YouTubeYes, things fail, and the press hardly ever talks about it.
- Yes, things fail, and the press hardly ever talks about it.
- And that it is, it could hardly be more simple than that.
- I breathed it because you could hardly even think differently.
- So we were protected, but it was hardly loved.
- In fact, there's hardly anyone there at all.
- She can run, caring for herself, eating hardly anything, healing her own wounds.
- Efficient they might be that, but they were hardly creative and far from happy.
- He never sat down to watch TV, hardly ever at all.
- News of climate change hardly sinks in.
Examples
-
Their rubber-soled shoes made hardly a sound on the concrete as they returned to the road.
Academic text (2011) -
In fact, there's hardly anyone there at all.
-
And I said that I can hardly speak.
-
There is pretty much hardly any smell to this.
-
There is hardly a sound.
-
The two most important men in my life can hardly stand to look at me.
-
The problem is that "efficient use" requires technology that is hardly available for most farmers.
Academic text (2012) -
While these are useful tools, they should hardly be the primary source of leads for investigations.
Academic text (2008) -
Hardly a day went by without a clash of some kind.
-
There's hardly anyone there this early in the season.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
By a very small amount
∞
1.0
Happens only by a very small amount
68
4.2
Almost not at all or only just
Antonyms
Idioms
- Informal
A humorous question asking if people do their job a lot or only a little
How Much
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Hardly comes from hard ('difficult') plus the ending -ly, so it originally meant 'in a difficult way'. So when you say someone can hardly do something, you mean they 'almost cannot' or do it only with great difficulty.