barely

barely (ˈbɛəlɪ)

—*adv*
1.	only just; scarcely: barely enough for their needs
2.	informal not quite; nearly: barely old enough
3.	scantily; poorly: barely furnished
4.	archaic openly

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

barely

O.E. bærlice "openly, clear, public;" see bare. Meaning "only, just" is recorded from late 15c.; that of "merely, simply" is from 1570s. In 15c. it also could mean "naked."

Example sentences

With it, they barely showed any signs of illness and lost trivial amounts of

weight.

He'll serve a langoustine flanked by barely cooked tiny yellow carrots and a

minute fronded radish.

Then she'll turn her head around and barely look at you.

The ailing economy, barely growing at the same pace as the population, has

swept all other political issues to the sidelines.

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Matching Quote

"As he grew accustomed to the great gallery of machines, he began to feel the forty-foot dynamos as a moral force, much as the early Christians felt the Cross. The planet itself seemed less impressive, in its old-fashioned, deliberate, annual or daily revolution, than this huge wheel, revolving within arm's-length at some vertiginous speed, and barely murmuring,—scarcely humming an audible warning to stand a hair's-breadth further for respect of power,—while it would not wake the baby lying close against its frame."

-Henry Brooks Adams

barely

bare·ly