■ adverb
1》 scarcely; barely.
↘only with great difficulty.
↘no or not (suggesting surprise at or disagreement with a statement).
2》 archaic harshly.
Usage
Words like ~ , scarcely , and rarely should not be used with negative constructions. Thus, it is correct to say I can ~ wait but wrong to say I can't ~ wait . This is because adverbs like ~ are treated as if they were negatives, and it is a grammatical rule of standard English that double negatives are not acceptable. See also usage at double negative .