few
/fjuː/determiner, pronoun
few is spelled F-E-W: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 398 times per million words in written English, the 227th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a determiner, few means “An indefinite, but usually small, number of” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in few?
| Letters | 3: F-E-W |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 398 times per million words; the 227th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How common is few?
Few appears 398 times per million words in written English, the 227th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce few?
- /fjuː/
- /fɪu̯/
Few has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-few.ogg, En-us-few.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with few
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: phew (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of few
- fewer comparative
- less comparative
- fewest superlative
- least superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does few mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
determiner
- 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.
pronoun
- 1
Few people, few things.
Many are called, but few are chosen.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Few in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | peu , quelques |
| German | wenig |
| Portuguese | poucos, poucas |
| Spanish | poco , pocos, pocas , [unos] pocos / cuantos |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does few come from?
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”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).