definition of the word few

From Old English fēaw.

• (UK) IPA: /fjuː/, SAMPA: /fju:/
• (US) IPA: /fju/, SAMPA: /fju/
•  Audio (US)^{help, file}

  Rhymes: -uː

few (comparative fewer, superlative fewest)

1. (preceded by another determiner) An indefinite, but usually small, number of.

   I don't know how many drinks I've had, but I've had a few.

   Quite a few of them (=many of them) were pleasantly surprised.

2. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (used alone) Not many; a small but somewhat indefinite number of.

   There are few people who understand quantum theory.

   I was expecting lots of people at the party, but very few (=almost none) turned up.

3. (meteorology, of clouds) Obscuring one eighth to two eighths of the sky.

   Tonight.. A few clouds. Increasing cloudiness overnight.

   NOAA definition of the term "few clouds": An official sky cover classification for aviation weather observations, descriptive of a sky cover of 1/8 to 2/8. This is applied only when obscuring phenomenon aloft are present--that is, not when obscuring phenomenon are surface-based, such as fog.

• Few is used with plural nouns only; its synonymous counterpart little is used with uncountable nouns.
• (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) Few, to some people, normally indicates a quantity of three.

Definition from Wiktionary Content avaible with GNU Free Documentation License

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