hardly ever

Related to hardly ever: translate

hardly ever

Nearly never; very infrequently; only on a few or rare occasions. We used to go visit Grandma and Grandpa every year when I was a kid, but nowadays I hardly ever see them. I hardly ever get the chance to go out to the movies alone since having kids.
See also: ever, hardly
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

hardly ever

Also, rarely ever, scarcely ever. Very seldom, almost never, as in This kind of thief is hardly ever caught, or He rarely ever brings up his wartime experiences. The ever in these expressions, first recorded in 1694, serves as an intensifier.
See also: ever, hardly
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
See also:
  • rarely
  • rarely ever
  • scarcely ever
  • kid around
  • go strong
  • go on for an age
  • go on for ages
  • a sometime thing
  • something thing, a
  • be as deaf as a post
References in classic literature
"Yes; but I shall hardly ever see you now," said Will, in a tone of almost boyish complaint.
"No," said Dorothea, turning her eyes full upon him, "hardly ever. But I shall hear of you.
Even now Varvara hardly ever appeared in the drawing-room, but would slip in by a back way.
On the other hand, cats, from their nocturnal rambling habits, cannot be matched, and, although so much valued by women and children, we hardly ever see a distinct breed kept up; such breeds as we do sometimes see are almost always imported from some other country, often from islands.
"Leslie's wild for books and magazines," Miss Cornelia had told her, "and she hardly ever sees one.
I hardly ever failed, when I rambled through the village, to see a row of such worthies, either sitting on a ladder sunning themselves, with their bodies inclined forward and their eyes glancing along the line this way and that, from time to time, with a voluptuous expression, or else leaning against a barn with their hands in their pockets, like caryatides, as if to prop it up.
They hardly ever show themselves to the common public.
After some more talk about this, I says: "Sandy, I notice that I hardly ever see a white angel; where I run across one white angel, I strike as many as a hundred million copper-colored ones - people that can't speak English.
But it is well known that this conjugal complacency belongs only to the weaker portion of the sex, who are scarcely alive to the responsibilities of a wife as a constituted check on her husband's pleasures, which are hardly ever of a rational or commendable kind.
In old-fashioned times an "independence" was hardly ever made without a little miserliness as a condition, and you would have found that quality in every provincial district, combined with characters as various as the fruits from which we can extract acid.
I am told that in a German concert or opera, they hardly ever encore a song; that though they may be dying to hear it again, their good breeding usually preserves them against requiring the repetition.
I hardly ever see you anywhere except at home and at church."
The whole point about General Elections is that they roll along every five years by law and the public can and does change its mind from time to time, while referendums hardly ever happen and we are stuck with the result for 40 years.
Furthermore, the civil hospital is crowded with patiens but, they are not being treated properly.The doctors are not regular on their duties, they hardly ever come and sit just in an hour and donot check patients seriously since the government rarely pays on civil hospital .
Roads in south Punjab are in a poor state and are hardly ever repaired.