hardly

Adverb

• almost not
  • he hardly ever goes fishing
    
  • he was hardly more than sixteen years old
    
  • they scarcely ever used the emergency generator
    

• 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
    

Related words

• Synonyms: 
  scarcely , barely , just , scarce