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Bit vs Few - What's the difference?

bit | few |

As a verb bit

is to beat (to strike or pound repeatedly).

As a proper noun few is

(british) the pilots who fought in the battle of britain.

bit

English

(wikipedia bit)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) bita and bite - all from (etyl) .

Noun

(en noun)
  • A piece of metal placed in a horse's mouth and connected to reins to direct the animal.
  • A rotary cutting tool fitted to a drill, used to bore holes.
  • (dated, British) A coin of a specified value. (Also used for a nine-pence coin in the British Caribbean)
  • (US) An eighth of a dollar. Note that there is no coin minted worth 12.5 cents. (When this term first came into use, the Spanish 8 reales coin was widely used as a dollar equivalent, and thus the 1 real coin was equivalent to 12.5 cents.)
  • (historical, US) In the southern and southwestern states, a small silver coin (such as the real) formerly current; commonly, one worth about 12½ cents; also, the sum of 12½ cents.
  • A small amount of something.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=15 citation , passage=‘No,’ said Luke, grinning at her. ‘You're not dull enough! […] What about the kid's clothes? I don't suppose they were anything to write home about, but didn't you keep anything? A bootee or a bit of embroidery or anything at all?’}}
  • (informal) Specifically , a small amount of time.
  • A portion of something.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Catherine Clabby
    • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= Focus on Everything , passage=Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus.
  • Somewhat; something, but not very great; also used like jot and whit to express the smallest degree.
    • Am I bored? Not a bit of it!
  • * T. Hook
    • My young companion was a bit of a poet.
  • (slang) A prison sentence, especially a short one.
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • *
  • (An excerpt of material) An excerpt of material making up part of a show, comedy routine, etc.
  • The part of a key which enters the lock and acts upon the bolt and tumblers.
    • (Knight)
  • The cutting iron of a plane.
    • (Knight)
    Synonyms
    * (coin) coin, piece * (small piece) morsel (of food), piece, scrap * (portion) portion, share, segment * (horse equipment) snaffle, pelham, kimberwicke
    Derived terms
    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    Adverb

    (-)
  • To a small extent; in a small amount (usually with "a").
    • That's a bit too sweet.

    Verb

    (bitt)
  • To put a bridle upon; to put the bit in the mouth of (a horse).

    • Etymology 2

    See bite

    Verb

    (head)
  • (bite)
    • Your dog bit me!
  • , bitten
    • I have been bit by your dog!

    Adjective

    (-)
  • (label) bitten.
  • (label) Having been bitten.
  • *
  • *
  • *

    • Etymology 3

    Coined by (John Tukey) in 1946 as an abbreviation of (binary digit), probably influenced by connotations of “small portion”.[http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/98/q2/0602-honorary.html][http://www.thocp.net/timeline/1944.htm
  • 1946] First used in print 1948 by (Claude Shannon). Compare (byte) and (nybble).

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • (mathematics, computing) A binary digit, generally represented as a 1 or 0.
  • (computing) The smallest unit of storage in a digital computer, consisting of a binary digit.
  • (information theory, cryptography) Any datum that may take on one of exactly two values.
    • status bits''' on IRC; permission '''bits in a file system
  • (information theory) A unit of measure for information entropy.
  • * {{quote-web, date = 2011-05-17
    • , author = Lisa Grossman , title = Entropy Is Universal Rule of Language , site = Wired Science , url = http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/05/universal-entropy/ , accessdate = 2012-09-26}}
    The researchers found that the original texts spanned a variety of entropy values in different languages, reflecting differences in grammar and structure.
    But strangely, the difference in entropy between the original, ordered text and the randomly scrambled text was constant across languages. This difference is a way to measure the amount of information encoded in word order, Montemurro says. The amount of information lost when they scrambled the text was about 3.5 bits per word.
    Synonyms
    * (smallest unit of storage) b
    Derived terms
    * bit-depth * bitwise * hidden bit * high-order bit * least significant bit * most significant bit * * * * *
    See also
    * ban, nat, qubit

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * English irregular simple past forms 1000 English basic words ----

    few

    English

    Determiner

  • (preceded by another determiner) An indefinite, but usually small, number of.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= A new prescription , passage=No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.}}
    I was expecting lots of people at the party, but very few''''' (=''almost none'') ''turned up.   Quite a '''few''' of them'' (=''many of them'') ''were pleasantly surprised.   I don't know how many drinks I've had, but I've had a '''few . [This usage is likely ironic.]
  • (used alone) Not many; a small (in comparison with another number stated or implied) but somewhat indefinite number of.
  • (meteorology, of clouds) (US?) Obscuring one eighth to two eighths of the sky.
    • NOAA definition of the term "few clouds": An official sky cover classification for aviation weather observations, descriptive of a sky cover of 1/8 to 2/8. This is applied only when obscuring phenomenon aloft are present--that is, not when obscuring phenomenon are surface-based, such as fog.
  • (meteorology, of rainfall with regard to a location) (US?) Having a 10 percent chance of measurable precipitation (0.01 inch); used interchangeably with isolated.

    • Usage notes

    * (term) is used with plural nouns only; its synonymous counterpart (little) is used with nouns. * Although indefinite in nature, a few is usually more than two (two often being referred to as "a couple of"), and less than "several". If the sample population is say between 5 and 20, a few would mean three or four, but no more than this. However, if the population sample size were in the millions, "a few" could refer to several hundred items. In other words, few'' in this context means ''a very very small percentage but way over the 3 or 4 usually ascribed to it its use with much much smaller numbers. : (term) is grammatically affirmative but semantically negative, and it can license negative polarity items. For example, lift a finger usually cannot be used in affirmative sentences, but can be used in sentences with (term). *: He didn't lift a finger to help us. *: *He lifted a finger to help us. (ungrammatical) *: Few people lifted a finger to help us. *: *A few people lifted a finger to help us. (ungrammatical) *: *Fewer people lifted a finger to help us. (ungrammatical)

    Synonyms

    * little (see usage)

    Antonyms

    * many

    Derived terms

    * a few * quite a few

    Related terms

    * paucity * poor

    Pronoun

    (English Pronouns)
  • Few people, few things.
    • Many are called, but few are chosen.

    Antonyms

    * many

    References

    * Meteorology (both senses) *: NOAA Glossary: f

    Statistics

    * 200 English basic words English indefinite pronouns 1000 English basic words