Short vs Few - What's the difference?
short | few |
Having a small distance from one end or edge to another, either horizontally or vertically.
(of a person) Of comparatively little height.
Having little duration; opposite of long.
* {{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April
, author=Anna Lena Phillips
, title=Sneaky Silk Moths
, volume=100, issue=2, page=172
, magazine=(American Scientist)
Of a word or phrase, constituting an abbreviation (for another) or shortened form (of another).
(cricket, Of a ball) that bounced relatively far from the batsman.
(cricket, Of a fielder or fielding position) that is relatively close to the batsman.
Brittle (of pastry, and some metals); see also shortening, shortcrust.
Abrupt; brief; pointed; petulant.
Limited in quantity; inadequate; insufficient; scanty.
Insufficiently provided; inadequately supplied; scantily furnished; lacking.
Deficient; less; not coming up to a measure or standard.
* Landor
(obsolete) Not distant in time; near at hand.
* Spenser
* Clarendon
In a financial investment position that is structured to be profitable if the price of the underlying security declines in the future.
Abruptly, curtly, briefly.
Unawares.
Without achieving a goal or requirement.
(cricket, of the manner of bounce of a cricket ball) Relatively far from the batsman and hence bouncing higher than normal; opposite of full.
(finance) With a negative ownership position.
A short circuit.
A short film.
* 2012 July 12, Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental Drift [http://www.avclub.com/articles/ice-age-continental-drift,82358/]
(Used to indicate a short-length version of a size)
(baseball) A shortstop.
(finance) A short seller.
(finance) A short sale.
A summary account.
* Shakespeare
(phonetics) A short sound, syllable, or vowel.
* H. Sweet
(label) An shorter than normal integers; usually two bytes long.
To cause a in (something).
Of an electrical circuit, to .
To shortchange.
To provide with a smaller than agreed or labeled amount.
(business) To sell something, especially securities, that one does not own at the moment for delivery at a later date in hopes of profiting from a decline in the price; to sell short .
(obsolete) To shorten.
Deficient in.
(finance) Having a negative position in.
(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= (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.
(meteorology, of rainfall with regard to a location) (US?) Having a 10 percent chance of measurable precipitation (0.01 inch); used interchangeably with isolated.
As proper nouns the difference between short and few
is that short is while few is (british) the pilots who fought in the battle of britain.short
English
(wikipedia short)Adjective
(er)citation, passage=Last spring, the periodical cicadas emerged across eastern North America. Their vast numbers and short above-ground life spans inspired awe and irritation in humans—and made for good meals for birds and small mammals.}}
- Our meeting was a short six minutes today. Every day for the past month it's been at least twenty minutes long.
- “Phone” is short''' for “telephone” and "asap" '''short for "as soon as possible".
- He gave a short answer to the question.
- a short supply of provisions
- to be short of money
- The cashier came up short ten dollars on his morning shift.
- an account which is short of the truth
- Hardly anything short of an invasion could rouse them again to war.
- Marinell was sore offended / That his departure thence should be so short .
- He commanded those who were appointed to attend him to be ready by a short day.
- I'm short General Motors because I think their sales are plunging.
Usage notes
* (having a small distance between ends or edges) (term) is often used in the positive vertical dimension and used as is (shallow) in the negative vertical dimension; in the horizontal dimension (narrow) is more commonly used.Synonyms
* (having a small distance between ends or edges) low, narrow, slim, shallow * little, pint-sized, petite, titchy (slang) * (having little duration) brief, concise * an abbreviation of, a short form ofAntonyms
* (having a small distance between ends or edges) tall, high, wide, broad, deep, long * tall * (having little duration) long * longAdverb
(-)- They had to stop short to avoid hitting the dog in the street.
- He cut me short repeatedly in the meeting.
- The boss got a message and cut the meeting short .
- The recent developments at work caught them short .
- His speech fell short of what was expected.
- We went short most finance companies in July.
Noun
(en noun)- Preceded by a Simpsons short shot in 3-D—perhaps the only thing more superfluous than a fourth Ice Age movie—Ice Age: Continental Drift finds a retinue of vaguely contemporaneous animals coping with life in the post-Pangaea age.
- 38 short suits fit me right off the rack.
- Do you have that size in a short .
- Jones smashes a grounder between third and short .
- The market decline was terrible, but the shorts were buying champagne.
- He closed out his short at a modest loss after three months.
- The short and the long is, our play is preferred.
- If we compare the nearest conventional shorts and longs in English, as in "bit" and "beat", "not" and "naught", we find that the short vowels are generally wide, the long narrow, besides being generally diphthongic as well.
Verb
(en verb)- This is the third time I've caught them shorting us.
Preposition
(English prepositions)- We are short a few men on the second shift.
- He's short common sense.
- I don't want to be short the market going into the weekend.
Synonyms
* (deficient in) lacking, short onDerived terms
* cold short * for short * hot short * in short * short-arse * short back and sides * short of * short-change, shortchange * shorten * short end of the stick * shortie * shortfall * shorthand * short strokes * shorty * the long and shortStatistics
*few
English
Determiner
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.]
- 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.
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
* manyDerived terms
* a few * quite a fewAntonyms
* manyReferences
* Meteorology (both senses) *:NOAA Glossary: f
