few meaning
EN[fjuː] [fju] [-uː]US UK
EN Few
- Pronoun
- Determiner
- (preceded by another determiner) An indefinite, but usually small, number of.
- No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.
- (used alone) Not many; a small (in comparison with another number stated or implied) but somewhat indefinite number of.
- There are few people who understand quantum theory. Many are called, but few are chosen.
- (meteorology, of clouds) (US?) 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.
- (meteorology, of rainfall with regard to a location) (US?) Having a 10 percent chance of measurable precipitation (0.01 inch); used interchangeably with isolated.
- (preceded by another determiner) An indefinite, but usually small, number of.
- More Examples
- Used in the Middle of Sentence
- But few in Córdoba think fernet and Coke, like the city itself, will lose its edge.
- The cryogenic system will not be affected by temperature fluctuations of a few millidegrees.
- There are a few lists you should make before you start wireframing.
- Used in the Beginning of Sentence
- Few TTR variants preferentially affect the central nervous system, manifesting as oculoleptomeningeal amyloidosis.
- Few goals had been expected with the three league meetings between the sides this season having produced one goal - and that a controversial penalty scored by Dons striker Scott Vernon.
- Few people are very patient when they′ve had less down time than Warren Beatty′s todger.
- Used in the Ending of Sentence
- The area was plagued by all sorts of vermin: fleas, lice, mice, and rats to name a few.
- The name "Appalachia" evokes a host of popular images and stereotypes: feuds, individualism, moonshine, subsistence farming, quilting bees, illiteracy, and dueling banjos, to name just a few.
- It is more than two weeks that Babylon 5 aired for the last time. We, Portuguese Fivers of conviction, are few.
- Used in the Middle of Sentence
Definition of few in English Dictionary
- Part-of-Speech Hierarchy
- Determiners
- Pronouns
- Indefinite pronouns
- Indefinite pronouns
- Determiners
Source: Wiktionary