scarce
1
9.9
- adverb
- /skɛrs/
- Archaic
:
apenas
- She could scarce remember now the times when she was happy and a child, and there was nothing more than playing and riding her mare, Selje, to concern her.
Examples
-
One day, walking about the other islands... he saw a thing his eyes could scarce believe.
-
I could scarce believe it.
Fiction book (1993) -
"It was put about my neck by mother, I scarce remember her.
-
" I can scarce believe it myself, but we have just been to see the body.
Fiction book (2002) -
I would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.
-
By day, we'd scarce see them at all.
-
So Atlas himself faints and scarce holds up his burden.
-
But Tydeus, my father, I scarce remember, since I was a little child when he left, when the Achaean warriors died at Thebes.
Blog text (1) -
"I can scarce believe it myself, but we have just been to see the body."
-
"It was put about my neck by mother, I scarce remember her."
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A short time before now
68
4.2
Almost not at all or only just
22
1.5
Only a very short time before something happens
How Little
Surface Forms
Etymology
Scarce in the older adverb sense means 'only just' or 'barely' and you can remember it as the adjective 'not enough' turned into 'almost not', which is the same idea behind the modern word scarcely. That's why saying you had 'scarce' entered the room means you had 'only just' come in.