By the skin of one's teeth

Usage examples of barely.

Accordingly he had, from time to time, accommodated him with small trifles, which barely served to support his existence, and even for these had taken notes of hand, that he might have a scourge over his head, in case he should prove insolent or refractory.

She had barely objected when he told her of his new affiliation with the Beller people, and she had said nothing in these past ten days, when the pressure of conflicting cross-currents had kept him bottled up within himself, unloving, cold.

Jiri and Neel told Lukien that Cassandra was still alive, though only barely.

Bullets at almost immediate range had barely pierced the tough hide of the alligator they had bagged two nights before.

I myself can barely look back on those twenty years of amatory servility with a full comprehension of the part I have been playing in them.

The sensation was so overwhelming that she barely noticed that Ambrose had changed positions and was now looming over her.

She carried several versions of analysand in working memory, and ran the new programs through the most comprehensive of the group, barely watching the lines of code as they flickered past on the screen.

A cup of tea had more caffeine, and the traces of tryptophan and anandamide were so small they barely registered.

It was barely possible that I was unjustly anathematizing these gentlemen, that, while they were peacefully sleeping, thieves had broken in below.

Berlin, the greatest anatomist and physiologist among my contemporaries, had barely affirmed he had seen a live centaur, I should certainly have been staggered by the weight of an assertion coming from such an authority.

Paran, Spindle, Blend, Antsy, Mallet and Bluepearl sat at the one nearest the blazing hearth, barely managing a word among them.

The selyn flows in the little nerve fibers were shutting down in attrition, and Digen, as he finished, could barely see them to avoid hitting them with the needle.

We barely caressed them, we gazed upon their frayed silver glitter, tapped their hard unsilvered tips, played absently with silver ribbons, and all of us attributed magical power to the slippers: out of the poor roly-poly they had been able to make something ethereal which, thanks to ballet slippers, was capable, day in day out, of going to heaven on foot.

He was slightly surprised to be accosted by an Ervickian in its ept-morph, an age at which barhopping was barely legal even on non-Ervickian worlds.

Although, as a general case, a ship unlucky in falling in with whales continues to cruise after them until she has barely sufficient provisions remaining to take her home, turning round then quietly and making the best of her way to her friends, yet there are instances when even this natural obstacle to the further prosecution of the voyage is overcome by headstrong captains, who, bartering the fruits of their hard-earned toils for a new supply of provisions in some of the ports of Chili or Peru, begin the voyage afresh with unabated zeal and perseverance.