adverb
Etymology: Middle English scarsly, from scars scarce + -ly
1. obsolete : in a sparing manner : stingily
2. : by a narrow margin (as of quantity, time, or space) : only just : barely
had scarcely rung the bell when the door flew open — Agnes S. Turnbull
also : only just if at all or as much or as many
seemed scarcely to notice what passed … as if he were in some partial coma — Elizabeth M. Roberts
scarcely more than a stone's throw from the square are the great flour mills — American Guide Series: Minnesota
: almost not
scarcely ever wore this mantle — Arnold Bennett
scarcely anything left to sell
it seemed to the child that it was after midnight … but it was scarcely eleven o'clock — Margaret Deland
a guide who knew scarcely a word of English
— sometimes used in nonstandard construction with a superfluous negative
wasn't scarcely eleven o'clock yet
ain't scarcely 15 year old
3. archaic : with difficulty
if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the … sinner appear — 1 Pet 4:18 (Authorized Version)
4.
a. : certainly not
could scarcely interfere between another man and his own beast — Owen Wister
b. : probably not — used to mitigate the force of the speaker's certainty
there could scarcely have been found a leader better equipped for the work — V.L.Parrington