Subscribe to Daily Writing Tips today! You will improve your English in only 5 minutes per day, guaranteed! You'll also get three bonus ebooks completely free! Try It Free Now. Another quality lesson from you that I should be thankful. Alfa King on May 12, am Good insight into the origins of these words. Jeff on December 16, pm Just my two cents, nothing to really to back it up by my own opinion. Dependent upon situation, 3 examples: As a proportion to a whole. A couple 2 A few a handful several It changes for when adding multipliers: a hundred or so A couple hundred a few hundred several hundred Jo on February 17, am I know these posts are rather old, but they are fascinating nonetheless.
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Free word lists and quizzes from Cambridge. Tools to create your own word lists and quizzes. Word lists shared by our community of dictionary fans. Sign up now or Log in. Definitions Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English. Click on the arrows to change the translation direction.
Follow us. Choose a dictionary. An indefinite but small number of persons or things. Several persons or things; a few.
More than one but fewer than many said of persons, places, or things ; separate or distinct, but not requisitely independent said of liability ; various or differing said of things. See also joint and several liability. Separate , distinct ; particular. A number of different ; various. Now merged into later senses, below [from 16th century].
Consisting of a number more than two or three but not very many; diverse. By itself; severally. This is closest to my belief, but I was taught that a couple was 2 or 3, no specifically either. This was because why would you call 2 a couple? I would say if a couple people got knocked down it was 2 and if you meant more than 2 people got knocked down, you are saying the wrong word.
A couple meaning 2 just makes sense. I was taught a few meant 3 or more but not a lot. I heard my Granddaughter tell a story and she said a couple. She told it again and it was a 3 or 4. I asked how many 2 or more? She said idk a couple.
I said a couple is 2, she said well more than two but I am not sure, I said if your sure it was more than 2 but not many use a few. One of the many things I do that makes me realize I have turned into my mother. I just had a discussion about this and after looking up what those words really mean I was confused.
My thought all these long years is that 2 is a couple, a few is 3 and several meant 7 or more it seemed to me the first 4 letters seve gave it away. Everything else was a specific number. A number a large number! It was very tongue-in-cheek, but I have been unable to locate it or any mention of it in recent years. It had entries like the ones in this thread, but also things like Many, Most, All represented as varying percentages , etc. I wish I could resurrect it from wherever it went!
My husband wanted to be a diver in USN. The dictionary defines Several as more than two but not many. Several, few, handful, bunch and some. These have no numerical significance. If you want to say an exact amount you would use the number. A few in this context being a subjective estimate.
That line was probably a lot more clever in the 70s, this upcoming generation is shockingly polyamorous. Governor Murphy of NJ just said yesterday that we are still several weeks away from opening up our economy. Sorry, no. Whileas in Korea in Korean English education throughout the country—or at least the southern half, this topic is formally covered.
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