Meaning & use
scarcely
Barely or almost not at all; used to show that something happens only to a very small degree.
See it in a sentence
She had scarcely sat down when the phone rang again.
There was scarcely enough food left to feed the whole family.
A note on using this word
Scarcely is a negative adverb; placing it at the start of a sentence triggers inversion, as in Scarcely had she arrived when the phone rang.
Words with a similar meaning
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Words with an opposite meaning
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