scarcely

1. 1.

   only a very short time before

   “we hardly knew them”

   “had scarcely rung the bell when the door flew open”

   “would have scarce arrived before she would have found some excuse to leave”

   Synonymsbarelyhardlyjustscarce
2. 2.

   almost not

   “he hardly ever goes fishing”

   “he was scarce sixteen years old”

   “they scarcely ever used the emergency generator”

   “I can hardly hear what she is saying”

   “she barely seemed to notice him”

   “we were so far back in the theater, we could barely read the subtitles”

   Synonymshardlybarelyscarce

Questions about scarcely

What does scarcely mean?

scarcely means "only a very short time before". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in scarcely?

scarcely has 2 syllables: scar-cely. The stress falls on "scar". In IPA it is /ˈskɛɹsli/.

What is another word for scarcely?

Close synonyms include barely, hardly, just, scarce, hardly. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is scarcely a common word?

scarcely is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.