Few vs A Few | Difference & Examples
Few can be a noun, determiner, indefinite pronoun, or adjective meaning “not many.” It is used when we want to talk about the quantity of countable nouns without being specific about their number (e.g., “few people”).
There is no specific number that few refers to, and in fact the actual number can vary significantly; “few people in the US” will probably be a larger number than “few members of my class.”
A few of my classmates meet up every year for a reunion.
There are few pleasures better in life than the smell of fresh-mown grass.
We have a few tips for your trip to Lisbon.
- Side effects were reported by few of those in the experimental group.
- Side effects were reported by three of those in the experimental group.
In these instances, it’s best to rewrite your sentence to ensure your meaning is clear.
Few vs a few
It is easy to assume that you can use few and a few interchangeably, but this is not the case.
- Few means “not many,” and you use it to describe a shortage of something (relatively speaking).
- A few means “some,” and, although it still doesn’t mean “many,” it is used to emphasize that the number referred to is more than two.
The GPS offered us a few route options for the first part of the journey.
It was a shame no one asked me, because I had a few good ideas.
Quite a few
If you add quite to a few, you then have a phrase—quite a few—that means “a relatively large number” or “a lot.”
Quite a few of the apples we bought were rotten.
A couple vs a few
Strictly speaking, a couple is two people or things (e.g., “the happy couple”). Often, however, it is used much like a few to mean a small number of things or people. It is also a phrase, like a few, which should not be used in academic writing as it is too imprecise.
In British English, a couple is followed by the preposition “of,” although in American English it will often be used without (e.g., “I saw a couple people I knew in the mall”).
Bear with me while I get a couple of programs for you.
Several vs few
Sometimes few is confused with several, but they have different meanings.
- Few is used to put emphasis on the lack of something and means “not many.”
- Several has a more positive emphasis, and it means “not many, but more than two” or “some.”
There were few volunteers, but several of them had experience in this line of work.
Few vs little
Few and little are sometimes confused because they have similar meanings, but they are grammatically different.
- Few refers to the quantity of countable nouns (e.g., cats, days, people, trees) and means “not many.”
- Little refers to the amount or degree of uncountable nouns (e.g., courage, traffic, butter, coal) and means “not much.”
In those early days, little advice was available to new students.
Frequently asked questions about few
- What does a few mean?
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A few means “a small number of” or “some.” If the adverb “only” is used with a few then it means “not many” (e.g., “It seems like there are only a few days each year when it doesn’t rain on the west coast of Ireland”).
It’s easy to check your writing for accuracy using the QuillBot Grammar Checker.
- How many is a few?
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There is no specific number associated with a few, but it’s usually a relatively small number that’s more than two (e.g., “In a few years, these trees will hide that ugly building”).