hardly

adverb

1. 1

   Barely, only just, almost not.

   They hardly ever watch television.

   It's hardly possible he could lose the election.

   Hardly did I arrive when he left.

   I could hardly have managed it in less time.

2. 2

   Certainly not; not at all.

   I hardly think they'll come in this bad weather!

   With this the second of three games in seven days for Stoke, it was hardly surprising to see nine changes from the side that started against Newcastle in the Premier League on Monday.

   Investors face a quandary. Cash offers a return of virtually zero in many developed countries; government-bond yields may have risen in recent weeks but they are still unattractive. Equities have suffered two big bear markets since 2000 and are wobbling again. It is hardly surprising that pension funds, insurers and endowments are searching for new sources of return.

3. 3

   archaicWith difficulty.

   And what gentle flame soever doth warme the heart of young virgins, yet are they hardly drawne to leave and forgoe their mothers, to betake them to their husbands […].

   While in Chelsea, Anne Smiley pined, taking very hardly to her unaccustomed role of wife abandoned.

4. 4

   datedHarshly, severely; in a hard manner.

   I was a fool when I married him; and I am so far an incurable fool on that subject, that, for the sake of what I once believed him to be, I wouldn’t have even this shadow of my idle fancy hardly dealt with.

   "Mr. Cholmondeley, the young men out here are much too hardly worked to allow them time for paying impertinent compliments."

   Only I wasn't at all pleased with that; I saw that he was simply sorry for me because I was so hardly treated by grandmother, and that was all.

   The War pressed hardly upon imaginative men in responsible positions.

5. 5

   obsoleteFirmly, vigorously, with strength or exertion.

   Let him hardly be possest with an honest curiositie to search out the nature and causes of all things […].

   Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and hardly, that I felt the palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness.

interjection

1. 1

   Not really.

   I think the Beatles are a really overrated band. ― Hardly!

Forms

comparative

hardlier, more hardly

superlative

hardliest, most hardly