Definition of barely in English:

barely

See synonyms for barely

Translate barely into Spanish

adverb

1Only just; almost not.
‘she nodded, barely able to speak’
- ‘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.’
- ‘It looked like it had struck her so violently that she was barely able to contain it.’
- ‘Today I had a snooze before getting in the bath; right now I can barely sit up and I haven't eaten.’
- ‘It was really awful making a kid who could barely sit still as it was meditate daily.’
- ‘He could barely sit through Coach Quinn's speech in the boy's locker room.’
- ‘He looked so vulnerable, barely sitting up with an arched back, and his face downcast.’
- ‘We had barely been sitting there a minute and a leaf from a maple tree above me fell into my lap.’
- ‘Just barely managing to remain sitting on the table was Kimrey, waving frantically at me to join her.’
- ‘His study is so full of fossils and chemical apparatus of various kinds that there is barely room to sit down.’
- ‘My last one just slightly less than that, and this one barely half the length of Moulin Rouge.’
- ‘I've planned to cover 15 exhibitions in six hours but from experience you barely manage half.’
- ‘I had to go round the flat, half asleep, eyes barely open, looking for a likely candidate for a bulb replacement.’
- ‘She stood up and was shown to be attired in a short tan dress that barely reached her knees.’
- ‘Why that album sat around doing barely any business for so many months is quite beyond me.’
- ‘Ryden was barely two when they sat us down and told us they were having another baby.’
- ‘It also helped that the plate was huge - so big, in fact, that Vicky and I could barely finish half of it.’
- ‘The average land holding is barely half a hectare, which in these conditions is not enough on which to grow food for a year.’
- ‘Fished on a floating line, the flies are lobbed slightly upstream barely an arm's length from the rod.’
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
View synonyms
1. 1.1Only a short time before.
  ‘they had barely sat down when 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.’
  ‘The second half had barely started when RI hooker Allport burst between two tacklers to score.’
  ‘The half had barely started when Fitzgerald delivered a great pass to Cotter to send over a point.’
  ‘The flight to safety has barely started.’
  ‘Another notary had barely sat down to commence the signing process when the wife of the borrower began flirting with him.’
  ‘It had barely rung once when Rudy answered. "Robert Charlton's phone."’
  ‘Paulettes bedsheets had barely cooled down when her telephone rang, erasing the lazy smile that curled the corners of her mouth.’
  ‘When the reports arrived, black smoke was still pouring from the shelter, and the operation to recover bodies had barely begun.’
  ‘Jeff Merkley's candidacy had barely gotten going and surely hadn't had time to register with many voters.’
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?’
- ‘Fully furnished apartments cost much, more than barely furnished apartments.’
- ‘It was barely furnished: a small seating area with a glass coffee table at one end and the piano and stereo system at the other.’
- ‘At night, when the moon is about to rise, this is what it can look like on the barely lit island of Fernando de Noronha.’
- ‘Its barely lit -candles align the walls and tables. The music: A subtle jazz number coming from the piano hidden in the corner.’
- ‘A massive, red-lit room features a stage in the back corner and a beautiful 40-foot wood bar running the length of the north side, barely lit by table lamps and the backlit bar.’
3 archaic Openly; explicitly.