barely
/ˈbɛːli
/adverb
1Only just; almost not: she nodded, barely able to speak [as submodifier]: a barely perceptible pause...
- She nodded her head, barely able to keep the silly grin from her face.
- However, Mr Selwood says the fear of being homeless has left him a broken man barely able to eat.
- If I lose my balance, if I fall over, into the mud, in this much pain, barely able to move, I may not get up.
Synonyms
hardly, scarcely, just, only just, narrowly, by the skin of one's teeth, by a hair's breadth, by a very small margin, by the narrowest of margins, by a nose;
almost not
informal by a whisker
1.1Only a very short time before: they had barely sat down before forty policemen swarmed in...
- We'd barely sat down before a gang of teenagers, all masked, came rampaging in.
- Daum skulked away to be replaced by Rudi Voeller, who had barely sat down before he was off to be national coach.
- We had barely sat down when the a group of four diners in the restaurant demanded to see the chef.
2In a simple and sparse way: their barely furnished house...
- He walked around the table as the others sat in his dark palace, barely lit by a few small lamps.
- I write this story to you from my barely furnished two windowed room where I await the one thing I hold dearest to me.
- Will you buy a lot with a fully furnished house, a barely furnished house, a stripped house or with no accompanying house at all?
3 archaic Openly; explicitly.