hardly before
hardly before は英検1級・TOEIC 600レベルの英単語で、「～するやいなや」という意味があります。発音記号は /ˈhɑrdli bɪˈfɔːr/ です。
～するやいなや
解説 Definition
「hardly ... before」は「～するとすぐに～した」という意味で、二つの出来事がほとんど同時に起こることを表す。過去完了形＋beforeの形が一般的で、劇的な場面や小説でもよく使われる構文だ。意味は「～するやいなや」と訳すと自然。
Hardly before is used to show that one thing happened almost immediately after another. It expresses that there was very little time between the two events. This structure is literary or old-fashioned and is not common in everyday speech.
覚え方のコツ Memory Tip
hardly はここでは「ほとんど〜ない」、before は「その前に」。つまり「Aしてから、Bが起こるまでの間がほとんどない」→「AするやいなやBした」と覚えると整理しやすいです。形は had hardly done A before B did が基本。as soon as より少し文語的で、出来事が立て続けに起きる感じを出します。hard を見て「難しく」と取らないこと、hardly＝almost not をまず固定すると崩れません。
Fix "hardly" first as "almost not," not "with difficulty." Then read the pattern as: there was hardly any time before the next thing happened. That makes the phrase easy to connect with very quick sequence. The common structure "had hardly done A before B did" is a good frame to memorize.
例文
Hardly had I sat down before the phone rang.
座るやいなや電話が鳴った。
Hardly had she finished speaking before the crowd applauded.
彼女が話し終えるか終えないかのうちに、聴衆が拍手した。
hardly before の類義語・関連語
紛らわしい語
hardly before の語源・成り立ち Etymology
hardlyは古英語heardlice（厳しく→かろうじて）から意味が弱化した副詞。beforeは古英語beforan（be-前に＋foran前方）。「かろうじて～する前に」→「～するやいなや」という時間的近接を表す。barelyも同様の構文を作る類義語。
"Hardly" comes from Old English "heardlice," which originally meant "in a hard or severe way." Over time, its meaning weakened and it came to mean "barely" or "scarcely." "Before" comes from Old English "beforan," meaning "in front of" or "earlier than." In the phrase, the idea is that one thing had scarcely happened before another followed immediately.
同じレベルの英単語をもっと
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