"Are you working hard or hardly working?"
Be careful with 'hard' and 'hardly.' The adjective and adverb forms are the same. The adverb 'hard' means with energy or force. For example, it is raining hard. The adverb 'hardly' has a very different meaning than 'hard.' Hardly means 'almost not'... For example, I am so sleepy that I can 'hardly' stay awake.
It was such a hard wind, I could hardly walk. Well... I couldn't walk softly, that's for sure.
NOTE: Phil correctly pointed out that I had originally posted a list of synonyms when I actually meant to post a list of antonyms. I have made the corrections below.
Thuy
A word that has the opposite meaning of a word (a word that has the opposite meaning of "softly" is called an antonym. Words that have similar meanings are called synonyms.
So, to find the opposite meaning of any word, we can do a Google search using the search terms "antonyms of _______"
Using the search terms "antonyms of softly", we get the following results:
some antonyms
aloud, loud, loudly, coarsely, heavily, rigidly, roughly, stiffly, strongly, unyieldingly, abrasively, firmly, toughly
