hardly.
Barely, only just, almost not.
Meaning & usage
Barely, only just, almost not.
They hardly ever watch television.
It's hardly possible he could lose the election.
Certainly not; not at all.
I hardly think they'll come in this bad weather!
With difficulty.
Harshly, severely; in a hard manner.
Firmly, vigorously, with strength or exertion.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English hardely, hardliche, from Old English heardlīċe (“boldly; hardily; without ease; in a way that causes pain; not easily; only by degrees”), equivalent to hard + -ly. Compare Dutch hardelijk, German härtlich.
Not really.
I think the Beatles are a really overrated band. ― Hardly!
Where this word comes from
From Middle English hardely, hardliche, from Old English heardlīċe (“boldly; hardily; without ease; in a way that causes pain; not easily; only by degrees”), equivalent to hard + -ly. Compare Dutch hardelijk, German härtlich.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.