few
\ˈfju\
The verdict
“few” is a moderately-common French word, ranked #33,682 in French word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #33,682
- frequency rank, French
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Peu de, presque aucun. Utilisé pour les dénombrables.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | few |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | \ˈfju\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #33,682 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “few” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for few is 3 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \ˈfju\. Corpus data places it at rank #33,682 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Peu de, presque aucun. Utilisé pour les dénombrables.".
few doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "FN", "fo", "fm", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is few, spelled F-E-W.
Definition
- 1Peu de, presque aucun. Utilisé pour les dénombrables.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "few"?
What does "few" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "few"?
How do you pronounce "few"?
What language does "few" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “few”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is F-E-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ˈfju\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “FN” - see the side-by-side comparison. few vs FN
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.