hardly

The word “hardly” means barely; only just; almost not at all. In plain terms, "Barely" or "almost not" — a soft way of saying something is nearly not true.

“Hardly” is pronounced HAHD-lee (/ˈhɑɹdli/ in IPA).

Here is “hardly” used in a sentence: “I could hardly hear him over the noise.”

“Hardly” is an adverb.

The word “hardly” comes from Old English. From Old English heardlīċe, built from hard + -ly; it originally meant "boldly" or "without ease" before narrowing to today's sense of "barely.".

“Hardly” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the A2 level.

“Hardly” has 3 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: barely; only just; almost not at all.

Despite sharing a root, they mean very different things. "Hard" describes effort or difficulty, as in "she worked hard." "Hardly" means barely or almost not at all, as in "she hardly worked." Notice that "hardly" is close to the opposite of working hard, which is exactly why the two are so easily confused.

Not quite. "Hardly" means almost not at all, leaving a tiny margin, whereas "not" is a flat negative. "I hardly slept" means you slept very little, not that you had no sleep whatsoever. It does carry a strong negative sense, though, and behaves as a negative word within a sentence.

You might say "I could hardly believe my eyes," meaning you almost could not believe them, or "there was hardly any milk left," meaning very little remained. It often pairs with "any," "ever," or "at all," as in "he hardly ever calls," to stress how small or rare something is.