1 only just; almost not:
I can scarcely believe it. * We scarcely ever meet. * Scarcely a week goes by without some new scandal in the papers. * There was scarcely a tree left standing after the storm.
2 used to say that sth happens immediately after sth else happens:
He had scarcely put the phone down when the doorbell rang. * Scarcely had the game started when it began to rain.
3 used to suggest that sth is not at all reasonable or likely:
It was scarcely an occasion for laughter. * She could scarcely complain, could she? * You can scarcely blame Annie. * It is scarcely surprising that the reforms have provoked such widespread discontent. -< 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 scarcely is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is scarcely a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, scarcely is tagged as adverb.
Does scarcely appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — scarcely 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.
