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"barely" is also used as a crossword clue. If that's what you saw, the answer is often minimally (9 letters).
Definitions
only a very short time before
Word origin
From Middle English baarly, bareliche, barely, barly, from Old English bærlīċe, equivalent to bare + -ly. Compare Danish bare (“only, just”), Norwegian bare (“only, just”).
Used in a sentence
“I barely completed my homework. However, I got a score of 5 for it.”
“It becomes, therefore, no inconsiderable part of science barely to know the different operations of mind,”
“1925, Walter Anthony and Tom Reed (titles), Rupert Julian (director), The Phantom of the Opera, silent movie ‘It is barely possible you may hear of a ghost, a Phantom of the Opera!’”
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Used as a crossword answer1 curated clues
01“Only just”6 letters
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