hardly, scarcely

• he hardly knew what to say.
  他簡直不知道說什么才好。
• i can hardly believe that some socialites and dignitaries are involved in syndicated crime.
  我簡直不能相信，一些社會名流，達(dá)官政要竟然涉及集團(tuán)罪行。

• when he played the piano he was scarcely four years old.
  他懂得彈鋼琴還不滿四歲。
• the tram was so crowded that there was scarcely sufficient room for you.
  電車上十分擁擠，幾乎沒有你立足之地。
• at midnight，scarcely any taxi could be found in the streets.
  午夜時分，街上幾乎看不到一輛的士。

副詞 hardly:

1. by a small margin- W.B.Yeats
   同義詞：barely, just, scarcely, scarce
2. almost not
   同義詞：scarcely

1. Hardly anybody came.
   幾乎沒有人來。
2. Hardly had the game begun when it started raining.
   比賽剛剛開始就下起雨來。
3. You can hardly blame me if you don't like the place, as you were the one who begged me to take you there.
   如果你不喜歡那地方，你絕不該怪我，因?yàn)槭悄闱笪野涯銕У侥侨サ摹?/div>
4. I can hardly wait to hear the news.
   我迫不及待地想聽到這個消息。

hard.ly

adv.（副詞）
Barely; just.
僅僅：幾乎沒有；剛剛
To almost no degree; almost not:
幾乎不：任何程度上幾乎不；幾乎沒有：
例句：
I could hardly hear the speaker.
我?guī)缀趼牪坏窖菡f者的聲音

Probably or almost surely not:
可能或幾乎肯定不：
例句：
.Easily was a man made an infidel, but hardly might he be converted to another faith.(T.E. Lawrence)
.一個人可以輕易地變?yōu)椴恍抛诮痰娜?，但幾乎不可能轉(zhuǎn)而相信另外一種信仰.(T.E.勞倫斯)

With severity; harshly.
嚴(yán)厲地；粗魯?shù)?/br>With great difficulty; painfully.
非常困難地；痛苦地

來源：
Middle English hardli
中古英語 hardli
from Old English heardloce [harshly, bravely]
源自 古英語 heardloce [粗魯?shù)?，勇敢地]
from heard [hard] * see hard
源自 heard [堅(jiān)硬的] *參見 hard

The use ofhardly with a negative is avoided in Standard English. Some critics have been puzzled that adverbs such ashardly, rarely, and scarcely should be treated as negatives in the traditional strictures against double negation, which tars sentences likeI couldn`t hardly see him with the same brush as I didn`t get none. After all, they argue, the sentenceMary hardly laughed entails that Mary did laugh, not that she didn`t,and therefore does not express a negative proposition.Buthardly and scarcely occur with other negative expressions in a number of ways. For one thing, they combine with items such asany and at all, which are characteristically associated with negative contexts: we sayI hardly saw him at all or I never saw him at all but notI occasionally saw him at all; we sayI hardly had any time or I didn`t have any time but notI had any time, and so on. Like other negative adverbs,hardly triggers inversion of the subject and auxiliary when it begins a sentence. Thus we sayHardly had I arrived when she left, on the pattern of Never have I read such a book or At no time has he condemned the movement. Such inversion is not used with other adverbs:we would not sayOccasionally has he addressed this question or To a slight degree have they changed their position. The fact is that adverbs such ashardly are semantically negative in that they qualify a state or an event relative to the limiting case of nonoccurrence.Thus the meaning ofhardly is, roughly, .almost not at all.; the meaning ofrarely is .practically never.; and so forth. These adverbs are felt to have a negative component in their meaning,and it should not be surprising that grammarians have reacted to combinations ofhardly with negatives in the same way that they have reacted to combinations of pairs of negatives such as not and none. See Usage Note at double negative ,rarely ,scarcely
Hardly 和一個否定詞在一起的用法在標(biāo)準(zhǔn)英語中應(yīng)盡量避免， 一些批評學(xué)家一直懷疑象hardly，rarely 和 scarcely 這樣的副詞在傳統(tǒng)的雙重否定的句中應(yīng)被視為否定詞， 這樣的詞使句子象I couldn`t hardly see him 和 I didn`t get none 一樣被弄糟了， 他們爭論說，畢竟句子Mary hardly laughed 的意思是瑪麗的確笑了， 而不是她沒笑，所以不表示否定的建議。但是hardly 和 scarcely 和其他的否定表示一起在許多方面出現(xiàn)， 舉例說，他們和象any 和 at all 這樣獨(dú)特的和否定上下文聯(lián)系的條目組合在一起， 我們說I hardly saw him at all 或 I never saw him at all , 但并不是I occasionally saw him at all； 我們說I hardly had any time 或 I didn`t have any time 但不是I had any time 等。 象其它否定副詞，hardly 在句子開頭時引起主語和助動詞的倒裝， 于是我們說Hardly had I arrived when she left， 和 Never have I read such a book 或 At no time has he condemned the movement. 等同樣的句型。 別的副詞并不用這樣的倒裝：我們不能說Occasionally has he addressed this question 或 To a slight degree have they changed their position 。 事實(shí)是象hardly 這樣的副詞語義上是否定的， 他們限定修飾了與不發(fā)生有關(guān)的狀態(tài)或事件。于是hardly 的意思大概是.幾乎根本不.； rarely 的意思大概是.實(shí)際上沒有.；等等。 這些副詞在他們的意思里留有否定的成分，語法學(xué)家們對hardly 和否定詞組合的反應(yīng)和對一對否定詞如 not 和 none組合的反應(yīng)一樣是不足為奇的 參見 double negative,rarely,scarcely