> as lemmas

1575 G. Gascoigne Noble Arte Venerie lxv. 181 If you enter not a Terrier before he be a yeare old, you shall hardly euer make him take the earth.

1615 T. Adams Blacke Devill 14 Pollicy and Piety haue parted company; and it is to be feared, they will hardly euer meete againe.

1662 J. Joseph Salmasius 264 The Libeller sayes, what malefactour might not pleade the like, if his Crymes have made all men his Enemies. But there were hardly ever such malefactours.

a1713 Ld. Shaftesbury Let. Conc. Design in Characteristicks (1715) III. 405 What is in the Beginning set wrong by their example, is hardly ever afterwards recoverable in the Genius of a Nation.

1772 J. Wesley Let. 16 June (1931) V. 322 That remedy..hardly ever fails to relieve..the severest bilious colic.

1828 Yankee May 174/3 A native Yankee..would never be the first to strike a blow, nor hardly ever the first to clinch, as he calls it.

1864 A. B. Longstreet Master William Mitten iv. 37 You hardly ever leave the house in the day time, while you often take recreation-rambles at night.

1909 Photo-era Mag. July 10 Full color-correction is hardly ever necessary in landscape work.

1952 G. F. Hervey & J. Hems Freshwater Trop. Aquarium Fishes 200 In the wild they are prolific breeders, but in captivity they hardly ever breed.

2012 G. Dolman Eighth Circle of Hell ii. 8 She has never—well, hardly ever—shown any degree of recklessness.