1 in a way that is just possible but only with difficulty:
He could barely read and write. * The music was barely audible. * She was barely able to stand. * We barely had time to catch the train.
2 in a way that almost does not happen or exist:
She barely acknowledged his presence. * There was barely any smell.
3 just; certainly not more than (a particular amount, age, time, etc.):
Barely 50% of the population voted. * He was barely 20 years old and already running his own company. * They arrived barely a minute later.
4 only a very short time before:
I had barely started speaking when he interrupted me. -< HARDLY
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for barely is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is barely a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, barely is tagged as adverb.
Does barely appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — barely appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
