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Barely   /bˈɛrli/   Listen
Barely

adverb
1.
Only a very short time before.  Synonyms: hardly, just, scarce, scarcely.  "We hardly knew them" , "Just missed being hit" , "Had scarcely rung the bell when the door flew open" , "Would have scarce arrived before she would have found some excuse to leave"
2.
In a sparse or scanty way.  Synonym: scantily.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Barely" Quotes from Famous Books



... be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth"....But that Hogarth had not come to wail and gnash he felt convinced: if he heard no sound above him, that might be because of the sounds around; so he crawled barely out, and, kneeling, put up a most cautious groping hand, the bed being in the darkest part of the room; someone there: and swiftly as a dolphin twists to dart and snap, his knife was in a breast and instantly ready to strike its ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... screamed coquettishly as the mining-engineer amorously squeezed her wet fingers under the soapsuds was shortly to be represented in the Cornishman's memory by another white cross in the Cemetery, a trunk full of pathetic feminine fripperies, and a wedding-ring that had been worn barely two months. But they did not know this, and they were happy. We should never love or laugh if ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... locate himself on the St. Lewis road, and in order to be close to his chief, the late Earl of Elgin, then residing at Spencer Wood, the Premier selected and purchased Thornhill, across the road, one of the most picturesque country seats in the neighbourhood. You barely, as you pass, catch a glimpse of its outlines as it rests under tall, cone-like firs on the summit of a hillock, to which access is had through a handsomely laid out circuitous approach between two hills. An extensive ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... taste was eclectic. His feeling for Charles d'Orleans and his contemporaries barely stopped on this side idolatry; but the classics of the seventeenth century had no message for him, and Victor Hugo as a poet left him, for the most part, unmoved. Indeed, he asserted that all French verse between Ronsard and Verlaine was purely rhetorical, and ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... of the Decemviri was this: Siquis occentassit malum carmen, sive condidissit, quod infamiam faxit, flagitiumve alteri, capital esto. A strange likeness, and barely possible; but the critics being all of the same opinion, it becomes me to be silent and to submit to better ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... There is barely room on the top of Nuvolau for the stone shelter-hut which a grateful Saxon baron has built there as a sort of votive offering for the recovery of his health among the mountains. As we sat within and ate our frugal lunch, we were glad that he had recovered ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... Barely three minutes had gone by than a whoop rang out, coming from the quarter where Steve had gone. The others raised their heads eagerly and listened, for if no second call followed it would mean that the one who signalled ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie

... of these remote ages, however, cannot have entirely disappeared: they existed in places where we have not as yet thought of applying the pick, and chance excavations will some day most certainly bring them to light. The few which we do possess barely go back beyond the III dynasty: namely, the hypogeum of Shiri, priest of Sondi and Pirsenu; possibly the tomb of Khuithotpu at Saqqara; the Great Sphinx of Gizeh; a short inscription on the rocks of Wady Maghara, which represents Zosiri (the same king of whom the priests of Khnumu in the Greek ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... love and assurance I tried to comfort the brave little heart that beat so loyally for me, and, fearing to leave her in this unhappy condition, I lingered until barely time remained in which to reach the observatory before Paris would pass out of wave contact. Explaining this to Zarlah, we hurried to the villa, and, as we ascended the steps to the balcony, I beheld a large high-speed aerenoid resting a short distance from mine. This, ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood

... on the coast of Italy where they expected he would land, intending to attack him as soon as he should set foot upon the shore. Both these plans were successful. The Carthaginians attacked his fleet, and destroyed many of his ships. Pyrrhus himself barely succeeded in making his escape with a small number of vessels, and reaching the shore. Here, as soon as he gained the land, he was confronted by the Mamertines, who had reached the place before him with ten thousand men. Pyrrhus soon collected from the ships that ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... said, executioners were wanting. There were barely twenty men at hand in the courtyard, all belonging to the petty tradesfolk of Avignon—a barber, a shoemaker, a cobbler, a mason, and an upholsterer—all insufficiently armed at random, the one with a sabre, the other with a bayonet, a third with an iron bar, and a fourth with a bit of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... rapid as a snake's dart the girl's hand came from beneath the table, reached across, and thrust into mine a small, folded paper. The next instant she was back in her place, staring down as before in apparent apathy. So amazed was I that I recovered barely soon enough to conceal the paper before Ramon ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... as a wooden leg takes the place of a natural one; it supplies what is lacking, barely does duty for it, claims to be regarded as a natural leg, and is more or less artfully put together. The only difference is that, whilst a natural leg as a rule preceded the wooden one, religion has everywhere ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Religion, A Dialogue, Etc. • Arthur Schopenhauer

... wholly mine that I Can wield its whole artillery, And mine so little, that my soul Dwells in perpetual control, And I but think and speak and do As my dead fathers move me to:— If this born body of my bones The beggared soul so barely owns, What money passed from hand to hand, What creeping custom of the land, What deed of author or assign, Can make a house a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... It is barely possible that the purpose and design of Comte's Classification had, unconsciously, much to do with its really unscientific and incongruous character. The aim which he had in view was to construct a Sociology or Science of Society which should be a guide in the establishment ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various

... he said, with I'm afraid something of a sigh. For you see he was barely twenty, and to have met your ideal so early in life is apt to rob the remainder of the journey of something of ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... four lines, is the story of the decline of the old American stock. At present, it is barely reproducing itself, probably not even that, for there is reason to believe that 1879 does not mark the lowest point reached. Before 1700, less than 2% of the wives in this investigation had only one child, now 20% of them have only one. With the emigration of old New England families to the ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... deliquescence; and I have observed that even their cattle have similar susceptibilities, seeking the deepest shade, or standing midleg deep in pools and streams to cool themselves, at temperatures which our own cows would deem little more than barely comfortable. To myself, after the summer heats of my native land had somewhat effervesced out of my blood and memory, it was the weather of Paradise itself. It might be a little too warm; but it ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... which Jack referred did not last. Their first "claim," though rich, was soon worked out, and they were obliged to seek another. This turned out to be a poor one, yielding barely enough of the precious metal to enable them to pay their way, every article of clothing, tools, and food being excessively dear at the mines. Nevertheless, they worked on in hope, but what was termed their "luck" became worse and worse every ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne

... great slow moving rafts, its marvelous steamboats that were like fairyland, and its stately current going to the sea. How it held him! He would sit by it for hours and dream. He would venture out on it in a surreptitiously borrowed boat, when he was barely strong enough to lift an oar out of ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford

... of both muscular and nervous powers was so great, that he could neither smell nor take the slightest notice of a bird, although placed at his nose. He could barely manage to drag one leg after the other, stopping to rest every few moments, and we were fearful that we should be obliged to shoulder and carry him to a farm-house, a considerable distance off. However, he succeeded, with much ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... it; he does this so well that he is made bishop of Porto Rico. In 1611 Fray Miguel Garcia is elected provincial of Filipinas, and administers his office very acceptably. Another reenforcement of missionaries arrives in 1613; their outfit for the journey is so meager that they barely survive its hardships. By vote of the chapter of 1611, the interval between its meetings was extended to four years. Much discontent arises at this, and the act is revoked, the next chapter meeting in 1614. An attempt is made ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... silent Italian servant who had lived with Dora since the first day she reached Florence came to her in wonder and alarm, barely recognizing her pretty, gentle mistress in the pale, determined woman who looked like one brought to bay. To her Dora spoke of the letter; it was to be given to her husband as soon as he returned. Not one word did she utter in reply to the woman's question. She hurried ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme

... little nation found barely enough substance for themselves, consisting as they did of but a few thousand, but an invading army starved. It was in truth a land "where a small army is beaten, a ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... condition, though Dr. Harwood declared that, 'there being no dust in Venice,' it had reposed for some centuries in excellent preservation. This immense body of books was re-sold in London two years afterwards at prices which barely covered the expenses incurred, though a large amount was obtained for a copy of the Polyglott Bible of Ximenes in six folio volumes printed ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... He was gone barely a minute; then returned to the table with a clouded brow. Almost immediately after the company had arisen from the board, he excused ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White

... that barely noticeable lingering of her hand in his. The repetition rather disappointed him. "It's just her way of shaking hands," was the explanation he gave ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... generation. Born of excellent family in tidewater Virginia, his father a successful planter, his mother had died while he was still in early boyhood, and he had grown up cut off from all womanly influence. He had barely attained his majority, a senior at William and Mary's College, when the Civil War came; and one month after Virginia cast in her lot with the South, he became a sergeant in a cavalry regiment commanded by his father. He had enjoyed that life and won his spurs, yet it had cost. There ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish

... obtained control of the lands in question, can dictate such rents to all applicants, as will barely enable them to live. As a matter of fact, it is quite probable that they would much prefer not to rent their lands, because they could save for their own pockets, the wages of a great many workers, for at least five months in each year, by placing ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... did sound in the morning barely sixty seconds passed when the door was opened to Colonel North and the two officers ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... The orders were barely delivered before the stranger was off at the top of his horse's speed, and soon disappeared amid the smoke of the battle. After a few minutes' interval, the Duke turned his glass in the direction of the brigade which was at fault, and exclaimed, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various

... were spent with Katrine Dulany. At first he believed that he would probably tire of the whole affair quickly. He was surprised to find that he did not. He found her always new. There was an elusive quality to her, days when she would barely permit him to touch her hand, when she dazzled him by the audacity of her thinking; her indifference to him, to him who was in no way accustomed to indifference in women. And a few hours later, perchance, he would return to find a girl with wistful ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane

... in his light way. "You are kind in your assumptions," he answered. "Miss Roden is barely aware of my existence, and would ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... on our left. The enemy, therefore, were able to bring all their guns from the direction of Adinfer Wood to bear on No Man's Land on our front. Lack of troops had necessitated the employment of the attacking Battalions in the most exacting fatigues up to the very eve of the assault. Probably, barely a man had had a full night's sleep for a week prior to the attack, and there had been scarcely a day or night when rain had not fallen consistently and heavily, and working parties had not been soaked through to the ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman

... her brow, and found refuge in her eyes only. "And this, too!" murmured she, sinking back on her seat. She barely heard Count Neal's introduction. She acknowledged his respectful greeting with a slight inclination of the head, and ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... he established his wife. The house was at the corner of two streets, and had a garden. Joined to the neighboring house on one side only, it was open to view and accessible on the other three sides. Diard paid the rent in advance, and left Juana barely enough money for the necessary expenses of three months, a sum not exceeding a thousand francs. Madame Diard made no observation on this unusual meanness. When her husband told her that he was going to the watering-places and that she would stay at Bordeaux, Juana offered no difficulty, ...
— Juana • Honore de Balzac

... she seemed very much took up with a young feller she called Arthur," he said, slowly; "but that was the last I see of 'em; they never even offered me a drink, and though they'd ask me to go down any time I liked, they was barely civil. The young lady didn't seem to me to want ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... soberly. 'I might have been careless and impertinent enough to say it a year ago, but not now. Lisa has all along been the victim of cruel circumstances. Wherever she has been sinned against through ignorance, it is possible, barely possible, that the fault may be atoned for; but any neglect of duty now would be a criminal offence. It does not behove us to be too scornful when we remember that the taint (fortunately a slight one) transmitted to poor little Lisa existed in greater or less degree in Handel ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... "Two Orphans" and "Esmeralda" to the company's repertoire. But it barely got them out of town at the really ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman

... to De Guiche that he turned pale, and, overcome by a sudden agitation, was barely able to stretch out one hand mechanically towards Raoul, as he covered his eyes and face ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... to be lost; Michel knew that full well. The moan of the sea was growing louder every minute, though he could not see its advancing line. There was no spot upon the sand that would not be covered before another hour was gone, and there was barely time, if enough, to get back to the Mont. He could not waste time or breath in talking to the child he held fast in his arms. A pale gleam of moonlight shone through the vapour, but of little use to him save to throw a ghostly glimmer across the sands. He strode hurriedly along, ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... was Sir Reginald Eversleigh. The young baronet contrived to exist, somehow or other, upon his income of five hundred a year; but, as he had neither abandoned his old haunts, nor put aside his old vices, the income, which to a good man would have seemed a handsome competence, barely enabled him to stave off the demands of his most pressing creditors by occasional ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... tranquillity, plundering you of the means of defense, alienating the affections of your allies and promoting the spirit of discord; must the tardy, tedious, desultory road by way of impeachment be traveled to overtake the man who, barely confining himself within the letter of the law, is employed in drawing off the vital principle of the Government? The nature of things, the great objects of society, the express objects of the Constitution itself, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... old now, barely twenty; and seventy is the appointed boundary of man's date, often exceeded by ten, by fifteen years. During all these fifty—perhaps sixty—years, I shall have to do without Barbara. I have not yet arrived at the pain ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... half frozen, half starved, and so tired they did not know which discomfort irked them most. They found Luck; his nose purple with cold marking the footage on his working script with numbed fingers. He barely glanced at them, and turned away to tell Bill Holmes to take the camera on down the draw to where that huddle of rocks stood up on the hillside. Andy and Miguel came back and ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower

... had been employed in exploring the wild passes of the Great St. Bernard, and received from him an appalling picture of the difficulties of marching an army by that route into Italy. "Is it possible to pass?" said Napoleon, cutting the engineer's narrative short. "The thing is barely possible," answered Marescot. "Very well," said the Chief Consul, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... way, but together making a wonderful world of it. We walked in a luminous mist; the road very plain beneath our feet, but leading always into nothingness, and reaching behind us such a little way as to barely include the tall, following, hazy ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins

... with safety to any distance. Instances of this kind have been innumerable. But as it is the aim of this book to solicit a better feeling towards them, rather than expose them to the continuation of censure, the writer will not enter into further detail in reference to their crimes, than barely to shew the great evils into which they have been led by many of those in high life, who have long encouraged them in the savage practice of prize-fighting. Pugilism has been the disgrace of our land, and our nobility and gentry have not been ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb

... barely possible that this entire series of formulae, Spondyli uel fonduli ({Rx} Nos. 115-121) does belong to Book II among the scallop hysitia, though we are little ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius

... Sep had barely time to close to the cabin door, and strike out with his precious bags for the surface. He felt he had had a narrow escape of detection, and that the sooner he sought a change of ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed

... to make it practicable for some men engaged, as had been this man, to drop at once out of sight. Hunter was at once upon his track, with the other policeman, both of whom fired at him. But as they acknowledged afterwards, they had barely seen the skirt of his coat in the gloom of the evening. The whole spot up and behind the corner of the road was so honeycombed by the works of the intended canal as to afford hiding-places and retreats for a score of murderers. Here, as was afterwards ascertained, there was but one, ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope

... glance Offut's horrible purpose, Jack attempted to seize his upraised hands, but he had barely made a move before ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood

... woman appeared. This one was even younger and more beautiful; she was almost a child, being barely seventeen years of age. Oh! the pity of it! She, too, was a street-walker. Like the other she lifted her skirt, disclosed her abdomen, and screamed: "Fire, brigands!" They fired, and riddled with bullets she fell upon the body of her sister ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo

... Republican party barely escaped defeat, the head of the ticket, Samuel M. Taylor, the candidate for secretary of state, receiving but 1,089 plurality. The national ticket did not fare quite so well, receiving but 1,072 plurality, and, for the first time since the election of Franklin Pierce in 1852, Ohio cast ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... was growing weary now. His head was barely above water. His efforts to clamber up the opposite bank were feeble, frantic. Yet, each time as he drew near ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... you headed the list and that thousands offered." My voice shook and I spoke with difficulty as I realized to whom I was speaking. "I know that you were the only one who came back alive, and that you were barely saved." ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... Gault, which barely touches the county, this formation consists chiefly of Chalk-marl, Lower, Middle and Upper Chalk. A series of Chalk Downs, an extension of the Chiltern Hills, stretches, roughly speaking, from Tring to Royston, forming by ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins

... you to excuse me," said Marcy, hastily, "my train is ready to go, and I have barely time to ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... The ruffians had barely time to take possession of the booty, to thrust the body behind the tapestry of the chamber, and to remove the more startling evidences of the crime, when the Prince arrived. He supped soon afterwards in the same room, the murdered jeweller still lying behind ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... paid much attention to her as she sat there barely tasting her supper, though she should have been hungry after her long walk and her early lunch. Miss Dorothy once or twice looked her way and nodded reassuringly, while Heppy slipped an extra large piece of cake on her plate as she ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard

... the roads, and the canal banks this morning were so packed with men, waggons, horses, bales, and lorries, that you could barely pick ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... "I have sent the first number of a work which I hope to continue from time to time. I send it more for the purpose of showing you what I am about, as I find my declining the situation at Washington has given you chagrin. The fact is, that situation would have given me barely a genteel subsistence. It would have led to no higher situations, for I am quite unfitted for political life. My talents are merely literary, and all my habits of thinking, reading, etc., have been in a different direction from ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

... the end and not strangle them first. Wild with horror at the prospect of their meeting so hideous a death, I sprang into the air, and ran my sword straight into the panting mouth of Garoche, so that the point came out at the back of his neck. He dropped, and I disengaged my weapon barely in time to check the onslaught of the other man, who, seeing Garoche's fate, had left the Countess and come at me again. I was out of breath after the violent thrusts I had made, and a mist now clouded my eyes. I know not how this last contest would have gone, had not Mathilde, ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens

... dancing is in striking contrast to that of the Mekeo people, whose movements are generally very gentle and slow, those of the feet, which are accompanied by a corresponding genuflexion, downwards and outwards, being a slow slight step, usually barely more than a shuffle, the feet being hardly lifted off the ground, and those of the head being confined to a slow and sedate backwards and forwards nodding. Also the progress of a party of Mekeo dancers is generally very slow,—a crawl,—so much so ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson

... with the same calmness which had marked his manner from the first, he looked fixedly at her for a little while, sighed again, and turned away. Just before he disappeared among the trees, he said "Farewell," but so softly that she could barely hear it. Some strange confusion clouded her mind as she lost sight of him. Had she injured him, or had he injured her? His words bewildered and oppressed her simple heart. Vague doubts and fears, and a sudden antipathy to remaining any longer near the summer-house, overcame ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... the steps, and Ma said she guessed she would wash to-morrow, and Pa said he believed he would hoe in the garden and get the weeds out so it would look better to folks when they went by Sunday to church. Well, Sunday morning came, and with it Saturday's daily paper, and Pa barely glanced it over as he got on his overalls and went out in his shirt sleeves a hoeing in the front garden. And I and my chum helped Ma carry water to wash. She said it seemed like the longest week she ever saw, but when we brought the water, and took a plate of pickles to the ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck

... music. A tenor voice was singing a recitative now, and that exquisite accompaniment, with a sort of joyful solemnity, still continued. Every now and then, shrill, high, and clear, penetrated a chorus of boys' voices. I, outer barbarian that I was, barely knew the name of Bach and his "Matthaus Passion," so in the pauses my companion told me by snatches what it was about. There was not much of it. After a few solos and recitatives, they tried one or two of the choruses. I sat in silence, feeling a new world breaking in glory around ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... in his bosom! He aroused himself, however, and as his sister advised him that she had been unable to give Jean the number of the house in the Rue des Orties, promised himself to go that very day to the office where the regimental records were kept and hunt up his friend. But he had barely got beyond his door and was crossing the Rue Saint-Honore when he encountered two fellow-soldiers of his battalion, who gave him an account of what had happened that morning and during the night before at Montmartre, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... frosts in winter. Even sorghum, that has for twenty years held a place in the hopes of the northern farmer, has declined so that the alleged production of half a million pounds in 1866 had became barely a twelfth of a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various

... the affray with barely a scratch or two. His attack had been so sudden and so ferocious that Flatt, though he was the larger man, had little ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter

... father—my grandfather, that is—was a clergyman with barely enough to live on, and his uncle was a Roman Catholic priest. Both of them have been ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... scanty a stock of lead, that to supply the musketry with bullets, it became necessary to strip the windows of the dwelling-houses in Charleston of their weights. Powder was also very scarce. The proportion allotted for the defence of the fort was but barely sufficient for slow firing. This was expended with great deliberation. The officers in their turn pointed the guns with such exactness that most of their shot took effect. In the beginning of the action, the flag-staff was shot away. Sergeant Jasper of the Grenadiers immediately jumped on the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... interests demanded it, however much it might pain them. Human sacrifices may be said to have been universal. They lasted down to the half-civilized stage of all nations and sporadically even later,[1959] and they have barely ceased amongst the present half-civilized peoples.[1960] They are not primarily religious. They are a reaction of men under the experience of the ills of life, inventing a world philosophy and putting agents behind it, in order to have something, if it be only a delusion, to which ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... turns at 'dishing up' in the kitchen, and sat down at the table between whiles; and they barely escaped being mobbed when they omitted one or two dishes on the programme, and confessed that they had been put on principally for the 'style' of the thing,—a very poor excuse to a company of people who have made up their mouths for all the ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... grievous to Gorgo to see her father suffering, though she told herself again and again that, ere long, the sanctuary must fall into the hands of the Christians, she felt safe, thankful and sheltered up here, in her old friend's half-lighted and barely-furnished room, shut off, at any rate, from the frenzied wretches of whom she thought only with ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... it stands by itself, and is not seconded with saving operation from heaven, it is called the Word only, the Word barely, or as if it was only the word of men (1 Thess 1:5-7; 1 Cor 4:19,20; 1 Thess 2:13). Because, then, it is only as managed by men, who are not able to make it accomplish that work. The Word of God, when in a man's hand only, is like the father's ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... all the days of my life—the humblest and most devoted of slaves, happy if you beat me, glorying in my slavery if you starve me, and giving praise to Almighty God if you trample me under your feet. Senora, senora, release me, for time is pressing—I can barely escape if you let me go this instant. Would you have my blood on your hands? Can you face the Virgin with that? ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow

... I had barely put my bicycle under cover in the courtyard when the Germans opened fire, not at our guns but at a couple of companies of the Manchesters who were endeavouring to take cover just north ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson

... a true prophet. It seemed as if the boy had barely left the store when he returned with a stoop-shouldered, solemn-faced man, who had a brush-heap of chin-whisker decorating the lower part of his face. After greetings and the explanation of the errand, Mr. Upton ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips

... the round, they agreed that there were but two spots where it seemed to them that an ascent was barely possible, and they were very doubtful whether the difficulties, when examined more closely, would not prove to be ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... the mustiness of the place. As she sat there, motionless, in her chair, it might have been thought that she was as inseparable from the house as a snail from its brown shell; her face, alert with a vague expression of mischief, was framed in a flat cap made of net, which barely covered her white hair; her fine, gray eyes were as quiet as the street, and the many wrinkles in her face might be compared to the cracks in the walls. Whether she had been born to poverty, or had fallen from some past splendor, she now seemed to ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac

... Adriance," chuckled Everett. "He is himself barely long enough to write checks and be measured for his clothes. I didn't hear from him while he was an Arab; ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... under pretence of being direct from Spain. She carried some casks of Spanish wine, and had a crew of 50 armed men. This ship dropped anchor off Rathmullen Castle on Lough Swilly, in which neighbourhood the young O'Donnell—then barely fifteen—was staying with his foster-father, McSweeny, and several companions of his own age. The unsuspecting youths were courteously invited on board the pretended Spanish ship, where, while they were being entertained in the cabin, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... distinguished hero, and have not abused my unrivalled advantages in the least. What! am I bitter on myself? There will be enough to sing my praises without myself joining in this chorus of congratulation. O! fool! fool! Now I know what folly is. But barely fifteen months since I stepped upon these shores, full of hope and full of pride; and now I leave them; how? O! my dishonoured fathers! Even my posterity, which God grant I may not have, will look on my memory with hatred, and on ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli

... the ethnic Albanian insurgency of 2001. The economy shrank 4.5% because of decreased trade, intermittent border closures, increased deficit spending on security needs, and investor uncertainty. Growth barely recovered in 2002 to 0.3%, then rose to 2.8% in 2003. Unemployment at one-third of the workforce remains the most critical economic problem. But even this issue is overshadowed by the fragile ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... perhaps much matter. You told me to be very cold, and I think that perhaps he thought me less gracious than before. Indeed, I fear that when he first spoke, I may seem to have given him too much encouragement. However, it is all over now; quite over! [As Augusta wrote this, she barely managed to save the paper beneath her hand from being moistened with the tear which escaped ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... to the dining-room. He could barely make out the congested faces through the thick tobacco smoke that filled the atmosphere. As Manuel entered, one ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... affinity seems almost infinite. But let us give gravity fair play by permitting it to act throughout its entire range. Place a body at such a distance from the earth that the attraction of our planet is barely sensible, and let it fall to the earth from this distance. It would reach the earth with a final velocity of 36,747 feet a second; and on collision with the earth the body would generate about twice the amount of heat generated ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... for six months of instruction courses, but there was barely a week to pass it on. Joe was run ragged, but in spite of everything he managed to talk at some length with Sally. He found himself curiously anxious to discuss any number of things with his father, too, who suddenly appeared to be ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster

... the night. Things before unseen or barely visible were now distinct, as if eager for a smile from the ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... to the one or good to the other. Discarding all those acts conducive to prosperity that one can do in life, the only acts I shall perform will be to open and shut my eyes and take as much food and drink as will barely keep up life. Without ever being attached to action, and always restraining the functions of the senses, I shall give up all desires and purify the soul of all impurities. Freed from all attachments and tearing off all bonds and ties, I ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... to chuckle guardedly. Captain Bastabol Bean, as an innumerable number of sailor-men had learned, was a person who generally had his own way. Intuitively the Captain understood that Lank had guessed of his surrender. A grim smile was barely suggested by the wrinkles about ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford

... against the thumb of the left. In the upward swing this pressure is gradually decreased, until when the club reaches the turning-point there is no longer any such pressure; indeed, at this point the palm and the thumb are barely in contact. This release is a natural one, and will or should come naturally to the player for the purpose of allowing the head of the club to swing well and freely back. But the grip of the thumb and first finger ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... assemble as often as their public functions demand, and will include no greater number than can join in those functions; so the natural limit of a republic is that distance from the centre which will barely allow the representatives to meet as often as may be necessary for the administration of public affairs. Can it be said that the limits of the United States exceed this distance? It will not be said by those who recollect that the Atlantic coast ...
— The Federalist Papers

... have seen, and who hath, I find, a design of concealing her from her family. You know, madam, she is a strange woman; but nothing could misbecome me more than to presume to give any hint to one of your great understanding and great knowledge of the world, besides barely informing you of the matter ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... Martaban, dwelt a horde of fiendish dacoits, who occasionally made a night raid on Moulmein, robbing and murdering, and then hurrying back to their stronghold. The Boardmans had been settled in their bamboo hut barely a month when they received a visit from the dacoits. One night Mr. Boardman awoke, to find that the little lamp which they always kept burning was not alight, and suspecting that something was wrong he jumped out of bed and lit it again. The dacoits had entered, and stolen everything ...
— Noble Deeds of the World's Heroines • Henry Charles Moore

... maxims of great weight. Therefore, as I said before, I am speaking of his acuteness, not of his morals. Though he should hold those pleasures in contempt which he just now commended, yet I must remember wherein he places the chief good. For he was not contented with barely saying this, but he has explained what he meant: he says that taste, and embraces, and sports, and music, and those forms which affect the eyes with pleasure, are the chief good. Have I invented this? have I misrepresented him? I should be glad to be confuted; for what am I endeavoring ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... god; temples were built here and there in the more accessible places, and round these were grouped the tombs of the whole country. The bodies of the common people, usually naked and uncoffined, were thrust into the sand at a depth of barely three feet from the surface. Those of the better class rested in mean rectangular chambers, hastily built of yellow bricks, without ornaments or treasures; a few vessels, however, of coarse pottery contained the provisions left to nourish the departed during the period of his existence. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... bide here?' I asked, gey an' plain, as ye ken a body has to speak to thae Englishers that barely ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett

... aid; when they leave us ... little by little, he sees fit to forego claim after claim on the world, puts up with a less and less share of its good as his proper portion; and when the octogenarian asks barely a sup of gruel and a fire of dry sticks, and thanks you as for his full allowance and right in the common good of life,—hoping nobody may murder him,—he who began by asking and expecting the whole of us to bow down in worship to him,—why, I say ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... water, yet one is inspired all the while by the voices of children, and the place is strongly alive. Over its sky there follow in stately order the great white clouds of summer, and at evening the haze is lit just barely from below with that transforming level light which is the joy and inspiration of the Netherlands. Against such an expanse stands up for ever one of the gigantic but delicate belfries, round which these towns are gathered. For Holland, it seems, is not a country of villages, ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... gentle invalid. It was a high and coveted reward for the little girls to carry "Monsieur's" medicine to his bedside, and everything that kindness and hospitality could suggest was equally lavished on him; but his feeble life, which had no doubt received a shock from the shipwreck it had barely escaped, went out peacefully like the soft flame of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various

... shambled forward for his money. He walked with a twisted shuffle; his body shook palsiedly. Hawkes had warned him of these, too—the dreamdust addicts, who in the late stages of their addiction became hollow shells of men, barely able to walk. He took his hundred credits and returned to his table without smiling. Alan shuddered and looked away. Earth was not a pretty world. Life was good if you had the stream running with you, as Hawkes ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg

... is situated in one of those romantic dells which are found here and there among the hills of Massachusetts. A small stream, tributary to the Connecticut, flows through the village, so small that it is barely sufficient to furnish the necessary mill-seats for the accommodation of a community of farmers, but affording no encouragement to manufacturers. It is to this reason, perhaps, that we may attribute the fact that a place, which was amongst the earliest settlements of Massachusetts, should ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... Blake, always an impetuous man, opened the door so quickly that Tom, who was standing near it talking to Mary, barely had ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton

... discovered that, just barely, the gallant lad had fallen under the general influence. At least so I thought. Perhaps his nerves were twitching with curiosity for the first ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... telegraph, and reach nearly to the shoulders; the fingers are covered with rings: and various combs, studded with rows of pearl cased in gold, are placed together with a massive gold bodkin, to great advantage in beautiful hair, plaited in two tails down the back. The feet are barely introduced into a little slipper, turned up very much at the toes, and also richly ornamented. The whole appearance is elegant ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne

... leading daily papers—and no doubt the same account was copied throughout the United States—a thrilling story of two lumber-jacks in the wilds of Northern Ontario being pursued by a pack of timber-wolves, and the exhausted woodsmen barely escaping with their lives, being forced by the ferocious brutes to spend a whole night in a tree at a time when the thermometer registered — below zero. I am sorry I have forgotten the exact degree of frost the paper ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... soon as she was out of sight the disagreeable letter from the other side of the continent would be promptly read, and wondered not a little concerning its contents. And she was right. Mrs. Trent had barely finished its perusal, when Mrs. Benton appeared, but from her the mother had nothing to hide. She looked up ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond

... pride and contempt and violent passions; lowering brows from beneath which shone little beady, cunning eyes that opponents feared and distrusted: this was Lucius Aemilius Paullus, the conqueror of Illyria, the man who had barely escaped conviction for his peculations, the colleague of Varro the butcher, a patrician of the bluest blood in Rome, a knave in pecuniary matters, selfish and ungoverned, but a brave and wary ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... happy February! in which man has least to bear—least pain, least sorrow, least self- reproach!' Even of this short month, however, Kant had not twelve entire days to bear; for it was on the 12th that he died; and in fact he may be said to have been dying from the 1st. He now barely vegetated; though there were still transitory gleams flashing by fits from the embers ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... stiff'ning wounds withheld; And struggling to his knees, he shook The sword his hand had not forsook, But to his arm it was denied To slay the foe his heart defied. The faintly wielded steel was left In the slight wound it barely cleft. Borne to the earth by the same thrust, That smote his en'my to the dust, His breast receiv'd their cowardly blows— The fluttering eye-lids slowly close, Then parting, show the eye beneath White with the searching touch of Death. The last thick drops ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... crescent moon would not rise for another couple of hours, and a thick pall of cloud cut off all light from the stars. A faint wind stirred the branches of the few trees in the neighborhood and sighed across the wide spaces of open country. The inspector walked slowly, being barely able to see against the sky the tops of the hedges which bounded the lane. Except for himself no living creature ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts

... to a crisis. I did not know what he would do, nor even what he had the power to do. To move to fresh apartments would have meant delay; altogether I had barely twenty pounds left in the world, for the most part in a bank—and I could not afford that. Vanish! It was irresistible. Then there would be an inquiry, the sacking ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells

... 1852, signed only with initials, appeared in a Russian periodical the first work of Count Leo Tolstoi—"Childhood." By 1867, his name was just barely known outside of Russia, for in that year the American diplomat, Eugene Schuyler, in the preface to his translation of "Fathers and Sons," said, "The success of Gogol brought out a large number of romance-writers, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps

... springs eternal in the human breast. Surely in no place other than the mines is the fact so manifest. There was once a man seventy-three years old who was sinking through a cap of cement two hundred feet thick. The stuff was just this side of powderwork, barely to be loosened with a pick. The old man had to climb down sixty feet of ladder, fill his bucket, climb up again and dump it, and so on and so on and so on. Besides, he had to walk thirty miles and back again with his load, ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips



Words linked to "Barely" :   scarcely, scarce, bare



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