'Hardly' definitions:
Definition of 'hardly'
(from WordNet)
adverb
Only a very short time before; "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, hardly, just, scarcely, scarce]
adverb
Almost not; "he hardly ever goes fishing"; "he was hardly more than sixteen years old"; "they scarcely ever used the emergency generator" [syn: hardly, scarcely]
Definition of 'Hardly'
From: GCIDE
- Hardly \Hard"ly\ (h[aum]rd"l[y^]), adv. [AS. heardlice. See Hard.] [1913 Webster]
- 1. In a hard or difficult manner; with difficulty. [1913 Webster]
- Recovering hardly what he lost before. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]
- 2. Unwillingly; grudgingly. [1913 Webster]
- The House of Peers gave so hardly their consent. --Milton. [1913 Webster]
- 3. Scarcely; barely; not quite; not wholly. [1913 Webster]
- Hardly shall you find any one so bad, but he desires the credit of being thought good. --South. [1913 Webster]
- 4. Severely; harshly; roughly. [1913 Webster]
- He has in many things been hardly used. --Swift. [1913 Webster]
- 5. Confidently; hardily. [Obs.] --Holland. [1913 Webster]
- 6. Certainly; surely; indeed. [Obs.] --Chaucer. [1913 Webster]
Synonyms of 'hardly'
From: Moby Thesaurus
- 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
Words containing 'Hardly'
- Hard,
- Hard by,
- Hard up,
- Harding,
- Hardness,
- Hards,
- hardly a,
- A hard case,
- Hard and fast,
- Hard cancer,
- Hard case,
- Hard clam,
- Hard coal,
- Hard finish,
- Hard grass,
- Hard lines,
- Hard money,
- Hard multum,
- Hard oyster,
- Hard pan,
- Hard pushed,
- Hard rubber,
- Hard run,
- Hard soap,
- Hard solder,
- Hard steel,
- Hard water,
- Hard wood,
- Harding County,
- Harding, AK,
- Harding, MN,
- Harding, NM,
- Harding, SD,
- Heart hardness,
- In hard condition,
- To go hard with,
- To have hard measure,
- To lie hard,
- To ride hard,
- To run hard,
- die hard,
- hard beech,
- hard candy,
- hard cash,
- hard chancre,
- hard cheese,
- hard cider,
- hard copy,
- hard core,
- hard currency,
- hard disc,
- hard disk,
- hard drink,
- hard drive,
- hard drug,
- hard earned,
- hard feelings,
- hard fern,
- hard fought,
- hard goods,
- hard hat,
- hard job,
- hard knocks,
- hard labor,
- hard lead,
- hard life,
- hard line,
- hard liquor,
- hard news,
- hard palate,
- hard pressed,
- hard put,
- hard right,
- hard rock,
- hard roe,
- hard roll,
- hard rush,
- hard sauce,
- hard sell,
- hard shoulder,
- hard stuff,
- hard surface,
- hard tick,
- hard time,
- hard times,
- hard to please,
- hard wheat,
- hard wired,
- hard worker,
- hard-on,
- harding grass,
- hardly ever,
- president harding,
- strike hard,
- warren harding,
- Hard-favored,
- Hard-favoredness,
- Hard-featured,
- Hard-fisted,
- Hard-handed,
- Hard-headedness,
- Hard-hearted,
- Hard-heartedness,
- Hard-labored,
- Hard-mouthed,
- Hard-shell,
- Hard-tack,
- Hard-visaged,
- Harding County, NM,
- Harding County, SD,
- Helm hard alee,
- Helm hard aport,
- Helm hard astarboard,
- Ni-hard,
- To bear one hard,
- charles hard townes,
- die-hard,
- hard-and-fast,
- hard-baked,
- hard-bitten,
- hard-boiled,
- hard-bound,
- hard-core,
- hard-fought,
- hard-headed,
- hard-hitting,
- hard-line,
- hard-nosed,
- hard-of-hearing,
- hard-pressed,
- hard-shelled,
- hard-surfaced,
- hard-to-please,
- hard-wired,
- hard-won,
- warren gamaliel harding,
- Hard-shelled clam,
- Harding-Birch Lakes,
- Ni-hard iron,
- Scirrhous cancer or Hard cancer,
- hard-boiled egg,
- hard-cooked egg,
- hard-shell clam,
- hard-shell crab,
- hard-skinned puffball,
- Harding-Birch Lakes, AK,
- with hard-shelled nuts yielding a valuable oil,
- arduous backbreaking back-breaking grueling gruelling hard heavy laborious labourious punishing slavish strenuous toilsome