# harden vs hardly

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### harden
*verb · IPA /ˈhɑɹdn̩/ · frequency rank #14,554*
To become hard.

### hardly
*adverb · IPA /ˈhɑːdli/ · frequency rank #2,834*
Barely, only just, almost not.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/harden-vs-hardly