1. Barely or hardly available.
2. Almost never or by a small margin.

Because scarcely has the force of a negative, its use with another negative, as in "I couldn't scarcely believe it", is regarded as grammatically incorrect.

A clause following scarcely is correctly introduced by when or before; the use of than, though common, is still unacceptable to some grammarians: "The meeting had scarcely begun when it was interrupted." "The class had scarcely started before the 'fire-drill' bell rang"; however, the following is NOT considered acceptable: "The class had scarcely started than the "fire-drill" bell rang."