/ˈhɑːdli/
Translation
Almost not at all.
Word origin
From hard plus ly. It once meant with difficulty, and slid into meaning almost not.
- Origin
- Old English
- Root
- heardlice
- English cognates
- hard
Examples
.
"Hardly" makes the sentence negative, so do not add "not".
.
"Hardly any" means almost none.
.
"Hardly ... when" says one thing happened right after another.
Used in
Stories
(1)Grammar articles
(5)Adverb position in English: before the verb, after be, and the just, still and already traps
Inversion and word order in English: the subject-verb-object spine and when it flips
Quantifiers in English: some, any, much, many and more
Question tags in English: the mirror rule, aren't I, and tags after let's and imperatives
Word formation in English: how suffixes build word families and give away the part of speech
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Go to my review queueThis word is part of lesson 25.