Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adv. Barely; just.
- adv. To almost no degree; almost not: I could hardly hear the speaker.
- adv. Probably or almost surely not: "Easily was a man made an infidel, but hardly might he be converted to another faith” ( T.E. Lawrence).
- adv. With severity; harshly.
- adv. With great difficulty; painfully.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Not softly or tenderly; roughly; severely; unfavorably; inimically.
- By hard work; with difficulty.
- Not quite or completely; only approximately; scarcely: as, it is hardly strong enough; that is hardly true.
- Barely; narrowly; almost not at all: as, hardly any; hardly ever.
- Not probably; with little likelihood: as, he will hardly come to-day.
Wiktionary
- adv. manner, obsolete Firmly, vigorously, with strength or exertion.
- adv. manner, archaic Harshly, severely.
- adv. With difficulty.
- adv. degree Barely, only just, almost not.
- interj. Not really.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adv. In a hard or difficult manner; with difficulty.
- adv. Unwillingly; grudgingly.
- adv. Scarcely; barely; not quite; not wholly.
- adv. Severely; harshly; roughly.
- adv. obsolete Confidently; hardily.
- adv. obsolete Certainly; surely; indeed.
WordNet 3.0
- adv. almost not
- adv. only a very short time before
Etymologies
- From hard + ly. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English hardli, from Old English heardlīce, harshly, bravely, from heard, hard; see hard. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The "extras" -- the word hardly does them justice -- include a Loach profile on TV's Southbank show from 1993, a new documentary about the making of the film and his landmark feature Cathy Come Home, a massively popular TV movie as worthy of attention on its own as anything Loach has done.”
The Huffington Post: Michael Giltz: DVDs: Jonathan Demme's "Wild" Ride
“Late last night, an anonymous resident from Akira Hall had recognized Aya and rekicked to her feed, but by then the fact that she had a name hardly mattered.”
“He slept throughout the entire journey and woke only toward the end of the afternoon as we jolted down the narrow lane to Misenum, where Lucullus had his—well, I was going to call it a house, but the word hardly fits that veritable palace of pleasure, the Villa Cornelia, which he had bought and extended on the coast.”
“The title hardly sounded formidable, but Egypt ' s bureaucracy was legendary.”
“Here's the Joint Working Group on what it refers to as "spoof," though the term hardly does justice to its gravity: States or terrorist organizations, for reasons that might range from protecting secrets to preventing attribution, may attempt to spoof any later investigation by mixing material from different sources.”
“Agreed, even if our college jazz department is so informal that the title hardly ever gets used.”
“But the title hardly exaggerates the part which the English minister was enabled to play during the next few years by the rivalry of Charles and Francis, and by the apparently even balance of their powers.”
“This hardly is an example to be emulated by any sane Israeli government.”
“Yet “slave” is a term hardly applicable to such “chattels,” who, as a rule, are free as their lords.”
“He relates, with apparent belief, the existence of several extraordinary quadrupeds in the vast Hercynian forest, such as the unicorn of heraldry, which here first appears; the elk, which has no joints to its legs, and cannot lie down, whose bulk he depreciates as much as he exaggerates that of the urus or wild bull, which he describes as hardly inferior to the elephant in size.”
The History of Roman Literature From the earliest period to the death of Marcus Aurelius
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hardly’.
-
EN - archaic words
abide, abjure, abroad, adamant, afield, aforetime, aghast, anon, apace, argent, assuage, aught and 328 more...
-
Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
-
Adverbia
A long list of adverbs, beginning with full-drive. Someone had to list them. This list in continued in the list More Adverbia.
Read some sniping and some informative commentary about a...full-drive, portentously, unlawfully, legally, heterogeneously, consumingly, clancularly, inconsolably, prepositionally, retrogressively, symptomatically, decrepitly and 2460 more...
-
my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
-
The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
-
Words I Think Are Overused
It's fine to say these words once in a while, but I think they get used to much (in my experience).
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hardly.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.