Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • 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.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb In a hard or difficult manner; with difficulty.
  • adverb Unwillingly; grudgingly.
  • adverb Scarcely; barely; not quite; not wholly.
  • adverb Severely; harshly; roughly.
  • adverb obsolete Confidently; hardily.
  • adverb obsolete Certainly; surely; indeed.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb manner, obsolete Firmly, vigorously, with strength or exertion.
  • adverb manner, archaic Harshly, severely.
  • adverb With difficulty.
  • adverb degree Barely, only just, almost not.
  • interjection Not really.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb almost not
  • adverb only a very short time before

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From hard +‎ ly.

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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.

    Michael Giltz: DVDs: Jonathan Demme's "Wild" Ride Michael Giltz 2011

  • 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.

    Michael Giltz: DVDs: Jonathan Demme's "Wild" Ride Michael Giltz 2011

  • 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.

    Michael Giltz: DVDs: Jonathan Demme's "Wild" Ride Michael Giltz 2011

  • 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.

    Michael Giltz: DVDs: Jonathan Demme's "Wild" Ride Michael Giltz 2011

  • 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.

    Scott Westerfeld: Uglies Quartet Scott Westerfeld 2010

  • 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.

    CONSPIRATA ROBERT HARRIS 2010

  • The title hardly sounded formidable, but Egypt ' s bureaucracy was legendary.

    No Tee Time for Zubaid Alex Berenson 2010

  • 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.

    Russ Wellen: Can Nuclear Terrorists Be Deterred? 2009

  • 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.

    Extras Scott Westerfeld 2008

  • 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.

    Extras Scott Westerfeld 2008

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