Definition of "hardly" []

• Barely; just. (adverb)
• To almost no degree; almost not: I could hardly hear the speaker. (adverb)
• Probably or almost surely not: "Easily was a man made an infidel, but hardly might he be converted to another faith” ( T.E. Lawrence). (adverb)
• With severity; harshly. (adverb)
• With great difficulty; painfully. (adverb)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The "extras" -- the word hardly does them justice -- include a Loach profile on TV's Southbank show from 1993, a new documentary about the making of the film and his landmark feature Cathy Come Home, a massively popular TV movie as worthy of attention on its own as anything Loach has done."
• "Late last night, an anonymous resident from Akira Hall had recognized Aya and rekicked to her feed, but by then the fact that she had a name hardly mattered."
• "He slept throughout the entire journey and woke only toward the end of the afternoon as we jolted down the narrow lane to Misenum, where Lucullus had his—well, I was going to call it a house, but the word hardly fits that veritable palace of pleasure, the Villa Cornelia, which he had bought and extended on the coast."