Adjacent Words

Scarcely definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

SCARCELY, adv.
1. Hardly; scantly.
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
2. Hardly; with difficulty.
Slowly he sails, and scarcely stems the tides.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adv
1: only a very short time before; "they could barely hear the speaker"; "we hardly knew them"; "just missed being hit"; "had scarcely rung the bell when the door flew open"; "would have scarce arrived before she would have found some excuse to leave"- W.B.Yeats [syn: barely, hardly, just, scarcely, scarce]
2: almost not; "he hardly ever goes fishing"; "he was hardly more than sixteen years old"; "they scarcely ever used the emergency generator" [syn: hardly, scarcely]

Merriam Webster's

adverb Date: 14th century 1. a. by a narrow margin ; only just <had scarcely rung the bell when the door flew open — Agnes S. Turnbull> b. almost not <could scarcely see for the fog> 2. a. certainly not <could scarcely interfere> b. probably not <there could scarcely have been found a leader better equipped — V. L. Parrington>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adv. 1 hardly; barely; only just (I scarcely know him). 2 surely not (he can scarcely have said so). 3 a mild or apologetic or ironical substitute for 'not' (I scarcely expected to be insulted).

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Scarce Scarce, Scarcely Scarce"ly, adv. 1. With difficulty; hardly; scantly; barely; but just. With a scarce well-lighted flame. --Milton. The eldest scarcely five year was of age. --Chaucer. Slowly she sails, and scarcely stems the tides. --Dryden. He had scarcely finished, when the laborer arrived who had been sent for my ransom. --W. Irving. 2. Frugally; penuriously. [Obs.] --Chaucer.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. You use scarcely to emphasize that something is only just true or only just the case. He could scarcely breathe... I scarcely knew him... He was scarcely more than a boy... ADV: ADV before v, ADV group, oft ADV amount [emphasis] 2. You can use scarcely to say that something is not true or is not the case, in a humorous or critical way. It can scarcely be coincidence... = hardly ADV: ADV before v, ADV group 3. If you say scarcely had one thing happened when something else happened, you mean that the first event was followed immediately by the second. Scarcely had they left before soldiers arrived armed with rifles... ADV: ADV before v

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

ad. See scarce

Moby Thesaurus

a bit, a little, at infrequent intervals, barely, by a hair, by an ace, by no means, ever so little, exiguously, extremely, faintly, fairly, feebly, hardly, hardly ever, here and there, imperfectly, in a measure, in a way, in no way, in places, in some measure, in spots, inappreciably, inconsequentially, infrequently, insignificantly, just a bit, kind of, lightly, little, meagerly, minimally, minutely, negligibly, not at all, not hardly, not often, not quite, noway, nowise, on no account, only just, piddlingly, pretty, quite, rarely, rather, scantily, scarce, scarcely ever, scrimpily, seldom, skimpily, slightly, somewhat, sort of, sparsely, sparsim, spottily, stingily, tant soit peu, to a degree, to some extent, triflingly, uncommonly, under no circumstances, unfrequently, unoften, very, very seldom, weakly