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📕 rednote ID(小红书号)：3881567312

Hardly: Meaning, Usage, and Common Mistakes (2 meaning)

Meaning 1：barely (hardly)

hardly 🔊

/ˈhɑːrdli/

adv.

Used to emphasize that something is almost not true, almost doesn't happen, or there is almost none of it.

barely 🔊

➕

/ˈbɛrli/

adv.

Used to emphasize that something is almost not true, almost doesn't happen, or there is almost none of it.

📁 Category：Behaviors & Actions 🔖 Level：intermediate

📘 Details & Usage

📖 Root Explanation

hard (difficult) + -ly (adverb suffix)

💡 Mnemonic

Hard work, but hardly any result.

📖 Example

After staying up all night watching the series, I hardly had any energy left for work the next day. 🔊 After staying up all night watching the series, I had almost no energy left for work the next day.

🔗 Collocations

hardly any – almost none

hardly ever – almost never

can hardly – almost cannot

🔄 Synonyms

barely (adv.) – by the smallest possible margin; almost not

scarcely (adv.) – only just; almost not

only just (adv.) – by a very narrow margin; almost not

🚫 Antonyms

easily (adv.) – without difficulty or effort

certainly (adv.) – definitely; without doubt

abundantly (adv.) – in large quantities; plentifully

📖 Cultural Story

Old English 'heardlice' meant 'severely, with difficulty'. Over time, it shifted to modern 'barely, almost not', commonly used in emphatic negatives.

Meaning 2：immediately after (hardly)

hardly 🔊

/ˈhɑːrdli/

adv.

Used to say that one thing happened immediately after another, often with 'when' or 'before'.

Suitcase hardly appears on airport carousel, showing immediate arrival

immediately after 🔊

➕

/ɪˈmiːdiətli ˈæftər/

adv.

Used to say that one thing happened immediately after another, often with 'when' or 'before'.

📁 Category：Time & Dates 🔖 Level：intermediate

📘 Details & Usage

📖 Example

We had hardly landed at the airport when it started to pour with rain. 🔊 We had just landed at the airport when it started to pour with rain.

🔗 Collocations

hardly...when – just after something happened, another thing occurred

hardly...before – almost immediately after something else

had hardly – used to indicate the first of two closely timed events

🔄 Synonyms

no sooner...than (adv.) – used to say that one thing happens immediately after another

barely...when (adv.) – almost immediately after

scarcely...when (adv.) – only just before something else happens

🚫 Antonyms

long after (adv.) – a considerable time after something

later (adv.) – at a time subsequent to a given time