hardly

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English hardli, also hardeli and herdeliche,^[2][3] inherited from Old English heardlīce (“sternly, harshly; bravely”),^{[4][5][2][3][6]} the adverb of heardlīc (“severe, bold”),^[3][7] formed from Old English heard (“hard”) + -līc.^[3] The two parts are the words that became hard and -ly.^[8][5][9] The same formation appears in Middle Dutch hardelīke (“violently, sternly”), Dutch hardelijk, Old Saxon hardlīko (“sternly”), Middle Low German hardelīk and Old Norse harðliga (“forcibly, sternly”).^[8] The adjective goes back to Proto-Germanic *harduz,^[10][11] from Proto-Indo-European *kar- (“hard”).^[5][10] Some Middle English forms with -e- may instead show hardily, whose senses partly overlap.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

With energy, force or hard effort: in the early Old English translation of Orosius.^[8] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has "Hé heardlíce gewon wið Æþelbald cyning", he struggled hard with King Ethelbald.^[7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the word to before the 12th century;^[3] in Middle English the OED and the Middle English Dictionary have it from about 1225,^[8][2] and Etymonline from about 1200.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word began as the plain adverb of hard: done vigorously, boldly, harshly, or with toil and suffering.^[8][2][7] It could even mean "certainly, assuredly", from before 1325 until 1600, a use close to that of hardily.^[8][5] The modern sense, which reverses all this, grew out of one branch of it, "with difficulty, not easily".^[5][9] Toller's Supplement to Bosworth already has "hardly, without ease" and "not easily, only by degrees" in Old English,^[7] and the OED and Etymonline date "not easily" to the early 15th century.^[8][5] A thing done with difficulty being only just done, the sense passed into "barely, scarcely", recorded from about 1532 in the OED and the 1540s in Etymonline.^[8][5] Etymonline names "not easily, with trouble" as the intermediate meaning,^[5] and the OED and the Shorter Oxford say that "with difficulty" now survives only as it passes into "scarcely".^[8][9] Johnson (1755) still put "with difficulty; not easily" first.^[12] From scarcely it went on to phrases such as hardly a (1534) and hardly any (1568), to outright denial (1631) and to "only just" of time (1652).^[8]

Timeline

• Old English – with energy, force, or strenuous exertion, in the Orosius translation.^[8]
• Old English – boldly, courageously (obsolete by 1626).^[8]
• Old English – harshly, severely, in the translation of Bede.^[8]
• Old English – with toil or hardship, in a homily.^[8]
• c. 1225 – firmly, steadfastly, in a life of Saint Katherine (obsolete by 1652).^[8]
• before 1325 – certainly, assuredly (obsolete by 1600).^[8]
• before 1425 – not easily, with difficulty.^[8]
• c. 1532 – scarcely, barely, almost not at all.^[8] Etymonline dates this to the 1540s.^[5]
• 1534 – hardly a, almost no.^[8]
• 1554 – closely, in proximity.^[8]
• 1568 – hardly any, almost none.^[8]
• 1631 – stronger denial, not at all, also as a retort.^[8]
• 1652 – only a very short time before, only just.^[8]

Meanings

Adverb

1. Only to a slight degree; scarcely, barely: I hardly knew my new neighbours.^[13][8][14]
2. Only just; almost not: He could hardly lift the crate.^[13][8]
3. Often ironically, not at all or probably not: That is hardly a fair question.^[13][8]
4. (archaic) With difficulty; not easily.^{[8][13][12][9]}
5. (rare) Harshly, cruelly: hardly treated.^{[8][13][3][9]}
6. (rare) With hardship or discomfort.^[8][9]
7. (archaic) With force; vigorously.^[8][3]
8. (rare) Closely, nearby.^[8][9]
9. (obsolete, Old English–1626) Boldly, courageously.^[8][9][2]
10. (obsolete, 1225–1652) Firmly, steadfastly.^[8][9]

Related words

• hard
• hardily

Usage notes

Because hardly, barely and scarcely are already negative, adding another negative in the same clause is condemned as a double negative;^[13][6] the older language had not hardly.^[5] In "only just" clauses the usual follower is when, not than.^[6] Of the three, hardly tends to stress difficulty, barely a narrow margin of success, and scarcely a margin below what is satisfactory.^[6] In Yorkshire and Lancashire dialect hardly is also an adjective, hardy, robust.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ Heidermanns, Frank (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der germanischen Primäradjektive, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter
12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)