Vocabulary     

What does few mean?

Definitions for few
fyufew

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word few.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. fewadjective

    a small elite group

    "it was designed for the discriminating few"

  2. fewadjective

    a quantifier that can be used with count nouns and is often preceded by `a'; a small but indefinite number

    "a few weeks ago"; "a few more wagons than usual"; "an invalid's pleasures are few and far between"; "few roses were still blooming"; "few women have led troops in battle"

Wiktionary

  1. fewpronoun

    Few people, few things.

    Many are called, but few are chosen.

  2. Fewnoun

    The pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain

  3. Etymology: From fewe, from feaw, from fawaz, from paw-. Cognate with fa, fo, fár, 03460330034503300339, paucus. More at poor.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. FEWadjective

    Etymology: feo, feowa, Saxon; fua, Danish.

    We are left but few of many. Jer.

    So much the thirst of honour fires the blood;
    So many would be great, so few be good;
    For who would virtue for herself regard,
    Or wed without the portion of reward? John Dryden, Juvenal.

    On Winter seas we fewer storms behold,
    Than foul diseases that infect the fold. John Dryden, Virg. Geor.

    Men have fewer or more simple ideas from without, according as the objects they converse with afford greater or less variety. John Locke.

    The fewer still you name, you wound the more;
    Bond is but one, but Harpax is a score. Alexander Pope, Hor. Imitat.

    Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few. Jonathan Swift.

    The imagination of a poet is a thing so nice and delicate, that it is no easy matter to find out images capable of giving pleasure to one of the few, who, in any age, have come up to that character. George Berkeley, to Pope.

    To answer both allegations at once, the very substance of that they contain is in few but this. Richard Hooker, b. v. s. 22.

    So having said, he thus to Eve in few:
    Say, woman, what is this which thou hast done? John Milton.

    Thus Jupiter in few unfolds the charge. John Dryden, Æn.

    The firm resolve I here in few disclose. Alexander Pope, Odyssey.

ChatGPT

  1. few

    Few refers to a small number of something or not many. It is often used to represent a quantity that is less than 'some' or 'many' but more than 'zero' or 'a couple'.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Few

    not many; small, limited, or confined in number; -- indicating a small portion of units or individuals constituing a whole; often, by ellipsis of a noun, a few people

  2. Etymology: [OE. fewe, feawe, AS. fe, pl. fewe; akin to OS. fh, OHG. f fao, Icel. fr, Sw. f, pl., Dan. faa, pl., Goth. faus, L. paucus, cf. Gr. pay^ros. Cf. Paucity.]

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Few

    fū, adj. small in number: not many.—n. Few′ness.—A few, used colloquially for 'a good bit;' A good few, a considerable number; In few=in a few (words), briefly; Some few, an inconsiderable number; The few, the minority. [A.S. féa, pl. féawe; Fr. peu; L. paucus, small.]

Suggested Resources

  1. FEW

    What does FEW stand for? -- Explore the various meanings for the FEW acronym on the Abbreviations.com website.

Surnames Frequency by Census Records

  1. FEW

    According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Few is ranked #13306 in terms of the most common surnames in America.

    The Few surname appeared 2,292 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 1 would have the surname Few.

    63.2% or 1,450 total occurrences were White.
    31.6% or 726 total occurrences were Black.
    2.6% or 61 total occurrences were of two or more races.
    1.5% or 35 total occurrences were of Hispanic origin.
    0.5% or 13 total occurrences were Asian.
    0.3% or 7 total occurrences were American Indian or Alaskan Native.

British National Corpus

  1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'few' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #177

  2. Written Corpus Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'few' in Written Corpus Frequency: #299

Usage in printed sourcesFrom: 

How to pronounce few?

How to say few in sign language?

Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of few in Chaldean Numerology is: 1

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of few in Pythagorean Numerology is: 7

Examples of few in a Sentence

  1. The Senate Democratic leader:

    We’re going to have someone in the next few weeks, i think it will be a little over three weeks.

  2. Danielle Fishel:

    We want to shout it from the rooftops but we know posting about his birth and it's complications opens us up to prying eyes - aka paparazzi staked outside our house, following our every move they way they did several times during my pregnancy, we are much too fragile for that right now and I pray wholeheartedly that we can have some space as we navigate these next few weeks.

  3. George Mychaliska:

    We know that even a few hours of that damages the lungs of a 24-week infant, our hands are tied, because in the absence of that, the baby would die. So we accept some lung damage to keep the baby alive.

  4. Andrew Ziem:

    Sales have come in waves. There was a boost after the second presidential debate and a bigger wave after FBI Director James Comey reopened the investigation on Friday, a few days ago I had just reordered the cloths from the printer and was mostly keeping up with signing them, but yesterday sales went through the roof. I panicked as I saw them selling out so fast because I do not like back orders, and I don't know how I am going to sign them all.

  5. Justin Silverman:

    Let's Plays aren't our thing (except for our first episode). We let guys like JonTron, PBG, and Continue take the lead on Let's Plays. I doubt we would even be that entertaining voicing them. We're more into informative humor and skits. We might do some specials down the line or possibly some sort of Live-Stream with us playing games, but not in the next few months.

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Popularity rank by frequency of use

few#1#575#10000

References

Translations for few

From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary

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