hardly ever
Very rarely indeed
Hardly ever means almost never or very rarely.
The phrase emphasizes how infrequent something is: She hardly ever calls anymore, I hardly ever eat red meat.
It falls between sometimes and never on a frequency scale, suggesting an action that occurs so seldom it's barely worth mentioning.
- rarelyNot often occurring
- seldomOn few occasions
- infrequentlyNot happening often
- scarcelyAlmost not
- almost neverOccurring very rarely
once in a blue moon · once in a while · uncommonly · occasionally · few and far between · sparingly · fleeting · distant · faint · unlikely · exceptional · sparse · scarce · remote · unusual · spotty · intermittent · sporadic
- frequency wordsalways, never, often, sometimes, usually
- infrequencyrarely, seldom, infrequent, infrequently, occasionally
- rarityrare, scarce, uncommon, infrequent, scant
frequency
hardly everalways
At all times
constantly · all the time · perpetually · invariably · continually
hard, hardly, harder, hardest, hardness, harden, hardened, hardening, ever