If you hardly know your neighbor, you only know him a little bit, and if you hardly understand what your French teacher says, you're only catching every few words she speaks. Hardly can also be used to talk about time: "We can't leave yet — the party's hardly started!" Hardly originally had nearly the opposite meaning: "with great exertion or effort." The phrase "not hardly," or "a little," eventually lost the "not" and became the hardly we know today.