One way to hold it: scarcely is a hand pushing a sentence down towards zero, and stopping just before it gets there. How much? Almost none. How often? Almost never. How long between two events? Almost no time. Is that true? Almost certainly not. The picture never changes; only what is being pushed down changes.
可以想成：scarcely 是一隻手，把句子往「零」的方向壓下去，壓到快碰到，但沒有真的碰到。有多少？幾乎沒有。多常發生？幾乎從不。兩件事隔多久？幾乎沒有間隔。這句話成立嗎？幾乎可以說不成立。畫面一直是同一個，變的只是被壓下去的東西。
From the word’s history
The source analyses scarcely as scarce + -ly (Middle English scarsly, scarsliche).
來源資料把 scarcely 拆成 scarce（稀少的）加 -ly。可以順著想：scarce 講的是東西少到不好找，加上 -ly 之後，少的不再是東西，而是一件事成立的程度。
Wiktionary (kaikki extract), scarcely: 'From Middle English scarcely, scarsly … equivalent to scarce + -ly.'
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