Few
det, name, pron ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 a small elite group wordnet
- 1 a quantifier that can be used with count nouns and is often preceded by ‘a’; a small but indefinite number wordnet
- 1 An indefinite, but usually small, number of.
"There are a few cars (=some, but a relatively small number) in the street."
- 2 Not many; a small (in comparison with another number stated or implied) but somewhat indefinite number of.
"Very few did she have not to go there, did she?"
- 3 Obscuring one to two oktas (eighths) of the sky.
"Tonight: A few clouds. Increasing cloudiness overnight."
- 4 (US?) Having a 10 percent chance of measurable precipitation (0.01 inch); used interchangeably with isolated.
- 1 Few people, few things.
"Many are called, but few are chosen."
- 1 The pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain. British
- 2 A surname.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"If I wanted to scare you, I would tell you what I dreamt about a few weeks ago."
Etymology
From Middle English fewe, from Old English fēaw (“few”), from Proto-West Germanic *fau, from Proto-Germanic *fawaz (“few”), from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- (“few, small”). Cognate with Old Saxon fā (“few”), Old High German fao, fō (“few, little”), Old Norse fár (“few”), Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌿𐍃 (faus, “few”). Also related with Latin paucus (“little, few”) and pauper (“poor”), from which latter English poor and pauper; see these.
From a speech by Winston Churchill that included the phrase "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few".
Related phrases
More for "few"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.