Few

a. Forms: 1 féawe, féawa, féa, 2 fïu, 2–3 feawe, Orm. fæwe, 4 south. veawe, (3 feaue), 3–6 fewe, 3–4 south. vewe, 3–5 feu(e, (3 feuwe, fawe, south. vawe, fowe, feowe), 3 fa, 3–5 fo(e, fon(e, (3 foun, fune, 5 fewne, foyn(e), 4– few. compar. 4 fewere, Sc. fewar, foner, 6– fewer. superl. 5 fewis(t, 6– fewest. [Common Teut.: OE. féawe pl. (usually féawa on the analogy of the adverbial fela, FELE many), contracted féa, corresp. to OFris. fê (very rare), OS. fâh, OHG. fao, fô, pl. fôhe, ON. fâ-r (Sw. få, Da. foa), Goth. fawai pl.; repr. OTeut. *fawo-, cognate with L. pau-cus, Gr. παῦ-ρος of same meaning, L. paullus little (:—*pau-r-los), pau-per poor, and perh. with Gr. παύειν to stop.

  The equivalent words in OHG. and ON., and the synonymous cognates in Gr. and Lat., were occasionally used in sing. with the senses ‘rare,’ ‘not numerous,’ ‘small in quantity.’ In OE. the sing. is not recorded, unless féa with partitive genitive (as in féa worda) may sometimes be neut. absol.; cf. similar use of ON. fátt, Fr. un peu de. The use of féa as adv. ‘little, not much’ is another survival of the prehistoric use of the sing. The word is not found in the extant remains ONorthumbrian. The ME. forms fa (northern), fo (northern and north midland) have the appearance of being from ON.; the forms fon(e, foun, fewne, etc. seem to have arisen from the addition of n as a plural suffix, but the n remains in the comparative foner.]

  1.  Not many; amounting to a small number. Often preceded by but, † full, so, too, very, † well.

  Without prefixed word, few usually implies antithesis with ‘many,’ while in a few, some few the antithesis is with ‘none at all.’ Cf. ‘few, or perhaps none,’ ‘a few, or perhaps many.’

  a.  qualifying a plural sb. expressed or to be supplied from context.

c. 900.  trans. Bæda’s Hist., I. xvi. [xxlx.] (1890), 88. Þætte her wære micel rip onweard & fea worhton.

1154.  O. E. Chron. (Laud MS.), an. 1138. Mid fæu men.

c. 1200.  Vices & Virtues (1888), 25. Ðis understandeþ auer to feawe saules.

c. 1275.  Lay., 26669. [Hii] leope to þan Bruttus and feue hii þar nemen.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 27864 (Cott.).

c. 1340.  Richard Rolle of Hampole, Prick of Conscience, 764.

c. 1400.  Maundev. (Roxb.), vii. 24. In Egipte er bot fewe castelles for þe cuntree es strang ynogh of þe self.

c. 1420.  Sir Amadace (Camden), lxx.

c. 1440.  York Myst., xxi. 72. With wordes fewne.

1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 123 b. The gyfte of prerogatyue called discrecyon … is but in fewe persones.

1596.  Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. iv. 111. That euer this Fellow should haue fewer words then a Parret. Ibid. (1599), Much Ado, I. i. 7. Leon. How many Gentlemen haue you lost in this action? Mess. But few of any sort, and none of name.

1611.  Bible, Job xiv. 1. Man that is borne of a woman, is of few dayes, and full of trouble.

1734.  Berkeley, Hylas & P. (ed. 3), II. Wks. 1871, I. 306. Few men think, yet all have opinions.

1751.  Orrery, Remarks on Swift. Guilty in so few sentences of so many solecisms.

1762–71.  H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), III. 47. No fewer than twenty-eight views.

1845.  Budd, Dis. Liver, 280. Among the numbers of bodies that I examined in the Dreadnought, of men who returned from India with abscess or other disease of the liver, very few, indeed hardly any, had gall-stones.

1870.  E. Peacock, Ralf Skirl., II. 189. The fisherman was a man of few words.

  b.  absol. = few persons.

Beowulf, 1412 (Gr.). He feara sum beforan gengde.

c. 975.  Rushw. Gosp., Matt. xx. 16. Moniȝe forþon sindun ȝecæȝed & feawe soðlice ȝecoren.

a. 1000.  Ags. Gosp., ibid., And feawa ȝecorene.

a. 1225.  Leg. Kath., 948.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 8496 (Cott.). Fa it wist quat it wald mene. Ibid. (c. 1340), 19495 (Trin.). Of fewere þen of þre may no bisshop sacred be.

c. 1430.  Syr Tryam., 538.

1484.  Caxton, Fables of Alfonce (1889), II. 250–1. Many one ben frendes of wordes only, but fewe ben in fayth or dede.

1548.  Hall, Chron., 161. Many sought for him, but few espied hym.

1653.  Holcroft, Procopius, I. 8. Having taken a greater proportion of meat and drink than usuall, they perceived not the Enemy; who entring the Town by few at a time, ascended the Turret, and killed the Monks being fast asleep.

1774.  Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), V. 47. That curiosity very few have an opportunity of gratifying.

1821.  Shelley, Hellas, 184.

  c.  followed by partitive genitive, and later by of.

Beowulf, 2662 (Gr.). Fea worda cwæð.

918.  O. E. Chron. an. 918. Hira feawa on weȝ comon.

c. 1000.  Ags. Gosp., Matt. ix. 37, Witodlice micel rip ys, and feawa wyrhtyna.

1297.  R. Glouc. (1734), 402. Þere of scapede vewe alẏue.

c. 1330.  R. Brunne, Chron. (1725), 242. He went to play a wile with fo of his banere.

1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 14. Fewe of them … miscaryed.

1611.  Bible, Deut. vii. 7. Ye were the fewest of all people.

1848.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 445. Few of the members of the late cabinet had any reason to expect his favour.

1875.  Helps, Ess., Aids Contentment, 11. How few of your fellow-creatures can have the opportunity.

  d.  predicatively.

c. 825.  Vesp. Psalter, cvii. 39. Fea ȝewordne sindun.

c. 1000.  Ags. Ps. cviii[i]. 8. Sien dæȝas his fea.

a. 1300.  E. E. Psalter, cvi[i]. 39. Þai ere fone made.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 8599 (Cott.). Þair clathes was sa gnede and fa.

1483.  Cath. Angl., 129/2. To be Fewe, rarere.

1594.  Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. (1676), 71. He is above, and we upon earth; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few.

1711.  Addison, Spect., No. 93, 16 June, ¶ 1. We are always complaining our days our few, and acting as though there would be no end of them.

1764.  Goldsm., The Traveller, 212.

1848.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng. II. 441. The gunmakers of Utrecht were found too few to execute the orders.

1863.  Lyell, Antiq. Man, 4. They [Eocene shells] may be fewer in number than was supposed in 1833.

1865.  J. C. Wilcocks, Sea Fisherman (1875), 163. The weed becomes very troublesome, and the fish consequently few and far between.

  e.  Some few: an inconsiderable number of. Also ellipt., absol., and followed by of.

1593.  Shaks., Rich. II., III. iii. 4.

1621.  Bp. Mountagu, Diatribæ, 526. Vnlesse some few, & Many in your language be all one.

1684.  J. Lacy, Sir H. Buffoon, v. iii. Dram. Wks. (1875), 294. Jud. He is the first subject that ever made himself a Knight. Her. Not by some few, my Lord.

1747.  S. Fielding, Lett. David Simple (1752), II. 158. There being some few Women, who cannot admire nor love the Object of Mens Admiration.

Mod.  Some few of the survivors are still living.

  f.  The few: a specified company small in number; often with qualifying adj. Now often = ‘the minority’; opposed to the many.

1549.  Coverdale, Erasm. Par. 2 Cor. vi. 17. They are but fewe, but onles ye auoyde the same fewes companie, it is to be feared, leste they corrupte the whole multitude, and deface the puritie of your religion.

1676.  Marvell, Mr. Smirke, 28. For a Few of the Few, for above these forty years, have been carrying on a constant Conspiracy to turn all Upside-down in the Government of the Nation: But God in his mercy hath alwayes hitherto, and will; I hope, for ever frustrate all such Counsels.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Æneid, IX. 244. The wakeful few, the fuming Flaggon ply.

1777.  Priestley, Matt. & Spir. (1782), I. Pref. 10. The favour of the few may silence the clamour of the many.

1875.  Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 183, The Republic, Introduction. The education which he proposes for his citizens is really the ideal life of the philosopher or man of genius, interrupted for a time by application to practical duties—a life not for the many, but for the few.

  † g.  ellipt. In few = in few words; in short. Also, To speak few (= L. pauca loqui). Obs.

1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 246 b. Be euer doynge well, & speke but fewe.

1565.  Jewel, Def. Apol. (1611), 116. To say al in few, they refused the name.

1597.  Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., I. i. 112.

1611.  B. Jonson, Catiline, III. ii.

1667.  Milton, P. L., X. 157.

1725.  Pope, Odyss., I. 476.

1742.  Young, Nt. Th., ix. 533.

1848.  J. A. Carlyle, trans. Dante’s Inferno (1849), 71. Ah, Justice Divine! Who shall tell in few the many fresh pains and travails that I saw? Andy why does guilt of ours thus mar us?

  h.  At (the) fewest: at the lowest estimate of number.

a. 1400–50.  Alexander, 3599.

  2.  Like the cardinal numbers, few may be used to form with a plural sb. a virtual collective noun preceded by a, every, or (rarely) that, but construed with plural verb. (Cf. ME. an five mile, an fourti ȝer; and see EVERY 1 e.)

  a.  A few: a small number of. Not a few: many.

1297.  R. Glouc. (1724), 18. Þe kyng with a fewe men hymself flew at þe laste.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Prol., 641.

c. 1400.  Rom. Rose, 5983.

1550.  Sir R. Morysine, Let., 17 Dec., in Tytler, Edw. VI., I. 345. I pray you let me now and then have a few lines from you.

1611.  Shaks., Cymb., IV. ii. 283.

1744.  Berkeley, Siris, § 82. By prescribing the copious and constant use of tar-water for a few weeks.

1796.  H. Hunter, trans. St. Pierre’s Studies of Nature (1799), II. 474. I will deliver my thoughts on the subject, in a few words, if perhaps it may incite some virtuous man to undertake it.

1848.  S. C. Bartlett, Egypt to Pal., x. (1879), 220. I counted fifteen of them in the surface of one rock a few feet square.

  b.  with ellipsis of sb. Often followed by of. Also absol. a few persons; occas. with an adj., as a faithful, select, etc. few, in which it approaches the nature of a sb. † A fewer; a smaller number of.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 19781 (Cott.).

c. 1380.  Sir Ferumb., 953.

a. 1400–50.  Alexander, 2061. Fra his faes with a fewe · þe filde to de-voide.

c. 1460.  Towneley Myst. (Surtees), 105.

1547.  Latimer, Serm. & Rem. (1845), 425. Of which sort we have a fewer amongst us than I would.

1601.  Shaks., All’s Well that ends Well, I. i. 73.

1719.  De Foe, Crusoe (1882), 540. To keep out pilfering thieves, of which, it seems, there were not a few in that country.

1723.  Pope, Lett. to Swift, 12 Jan. To pass my days with you, and a few such as you.

a. 1745.  Swift, Wks., 1778, VI. 358. Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.

1801.  Southey, Thalaba, I. xliii.

1871.  Morley, Voltaire (1886), 2. Its [Christianity’s] great glory was to have raised the moral dignity and self-respect of the many to a level which had hitherto been reached only by a few.

1872.  Hardwick, Trad. Lanc., ix. 175. A select few of tried old friends partaking of the hospitality characteristic of the season.

  c.  That few: rarely used for those few.

1854.  Tennyson, To F. D. Maurice, 5.

1859.  Lincoln, Agricultural Address, 30 Sept. [Wks. 1920, I. 581]. A few men own capital; and that few avoid labor themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labor for them.

  d.  A good few: a fair number (of); (dial. and colloq.). Quite a few (U.S.): a considerable number.

1863.  Mrs. Toogood, Yorksh. Dial., There were a good few apples on it.

1864.  Carlyle, Fredk. Gt., IV. 122. He had taken with him of cannon a good few; but of horse none at all. Ibid. (1855), V. XIX. v. 499. There are still a good few Sorrows which lie wrapt in silence, and have never applied there for an idle tear.

1865.  J. G. Bertram, The Harvest of the Sea (1873), 85. The young fish, as soon as they are able to eat—which is not for a good few days, the umbilical bag supplying all the food required for a time by the newly-hatched animal—are fed with particles of boiled liver.

1883.  P. Robinson Saunterings in Utah, in Harper’s Mag., LXVII. Oct., 706/1. ‘Is there a horned toad to be got here?’ ‘Oh yes,’ was the reply. ‘There’s quite a few about among the rocks.’

  e.  Every few (hours, miles, etc.): every series or group of a few; chiefly in advb. phrases.

  † 3.  Of a company or number: Small. So of a leader, to be few in number. Obs.

1460.  Paston Lett., No. 357, I. 526. The Duc of Excestre and other, with a few mayne, as men seythe here.

1475.  The Boke of Noblesse. He saw so few a companie of the Romains.

1531.  Elyot, The Boke Named the Gouernour, I. xviii. A few nombre of houndes, onely to harborowe or rouse the game.

c. 1565.  Lindsay of Pitscottie, Chron. Scot. (1728), 120. The Earl of Angus was come to the Town, and but a few Number with him, to the Effect of their Multitude, caused incontient fteik the Port of the Town.

c. 1610.  Sir J. Melvil, Mem. (1735), 13. And as to punishing of Evil-doers, so soon as he had heard the Complaint, he leap’d upon his Horse, and did ride to the Parties himself, with a few Company.

1611.  Bible, Gen. xxxiv. 30. I being few in number, they shall gather themselues together against me, and slay me, and I shal be destroyed, I and my house.

1711.  Swift, Let., 19 July. There was a drawing-room to-day at Court; but so few company, that the queen sent for us into the bed-chamber.

1828.  C. Wordsworth, Charles I., Author of Icôn Basilikè, 133. All the Royalist Historians (and their number assuredly has not been few) have claimed the Icôn for the King.

  4.  Of quantity: Not much. A few. a little.

  a.  qualifying a sb. in sing. Obs. exc. dial. in a few broth, gruel, porridge.

  [Possibly a survival of the use of the sing. of the adj. as in ON.; but the sbs. to which it is now prefixed are treated in dialects as plural, and referred to with pl. pronoun.]

1362.  Langl., P. Pl., A. vii., 269. A fewe Cruddes and Craym · and a þerf Cake.

1550.  Lever, Serm. (Arb.), 122. Hauyng a fewe porage made of the brothe of the same byefe, wyth salte and otemell, and nothynge els.

1607.  Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 199. Broath … to sup now and then a fewe.

1641.  H. Best, Rural Economy in Yorkshire in 1641 (Surtees), 68. A pecke or frundell of malte, and some few honey.

1803.  S. Pegge, Anecd. Eng. Lang., 216. ‘Stay a few while,’ a Londoner says, ‘and I will go with you.’

1825.  Brockett, N. C. Words 73. A ‘little few broth.’

1881.  Leicestersh. Gloss., ‘Av’ a few moor broth, love, thee’re very good to-dee!’

  b.  absol. A few. Used colloq. or slang in ironical sense, = ‘a good bit’; also adverbially. Also, Not a few: considerably.

  [Perh. orig. a comic Gallicism, after Fr. un peu.]

1761.  A. Murphy, The Citizen, II. i. I know my road work, my girl. Throw my eyes about a few; handle the braces; take the off-leader by the jaw.

1778.  Susan Burney, Let., in Mad. D’Arblay’s Early Diary, July. Your letter which diverted him not a few.

1807–8.  W. Irving, Salmagundi (1824), 199. He was determined to astonish the natives a few!

1837–40.  Haliburton, Clockm. (1862), 177. You must lie a few to put ’em off well.

1855.  Smedley H. Coverdale, v. 27. ‘Can you sit a leap?’ asked Harry. ‘I believe you, rayther, just a very few,’ was the confident reply.

1857.  Kingsley, Two Y. Ago, III. vii. If one man in a town has pluck and money, he may do it. It’ll cost him a few.

1865.  Lowell, Lett. (1894), I. 347. I am a little disappointed and a little few (un petit peu) vexed.

  5.  Comb., parasynthetic, as few-acred, -celled, -flowered, -layered, -seeded, -whorled.

1847.  Longf., Ev., II. ii. 8.

1875.  Dawson, Dawn of Life, vi. 139. *Few-celled germs.

1776.  Withering, Brit. Plants (1796), II. 138. Panicle 3 or 4 inches long, *few-flowered [printed flowerrd], flowers mostly pointing 1 way.

1861.  Miss Pratt, Flower. Pl., VI. 25. Few-flowered Sedge. Spikelet of from four to six flowers, the two upper barren.

1884.  Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner. & Ferns, 518. Only separated by narrow one- or *few-layered bands of usually non-lignified parenchymatous or fibrous cells.

1830.  Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 175. Distinguished by its less highly developed *few-seeded fruit.

1851.  Woodward, Mollusca, 83. Shell involute … *few-whirled.