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"scarcely" is also used as a crossword clue. If that's what you saw, the answer is often hardly (6 letters).
Definitions
only a very short time before
Word origin
From Middle English scarcely, scarsly, scarsely, scarsliche, scarseliche, equivalent to scarce + -ly.
Used in a sentence
“One could scarcely find any trout in the stream without the stocking program.”
“The staff here are frequently in the news, thanks to their successful efforts to make an attractive station where travellers would scarcely expect to find one.”
“One could scarcely expect the man to know how to fly a helicopter.”
Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0
Used as a crossword answer2 curated clues
01“Hardly at all”8 letters
02“Barely at all”8 letters
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