hardly

1. (degree) Barely, only just, almost not.Examples: "They hardly ever watch television."; "It's hardly possible he could lose the election."; "Hardly did I arrive when he left."Synonyms: barely, just, only just, scarcely

2. (now rare) With difficulty.Examples: "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."archaic

3. (manner, archaic) Harshly, severely; in a hard manner.Examples: "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."archaic

4. (manner, obsolete) Firmly, vigorously, with strength or exertion.Examples: "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."obsolete