Apedia

English Good Latin Young Paucus Pauper Danish Small

正面 186.few
英 [fjuː]美 [fju]

背面
释义:
adj. 很少的;几乎没有的pron. 很少n. 很少数n. (Few)人名;(英)菲尤
例句:
1. I have tried to pack a good deal into a few words.我尽量言简意赅。

1. Spelling shew, popular 18c. and surviving into early 19c., represents obsolete pronunciation (rhymes with view).2. 音译“秀”,如:talk-show(脱口秀)。
few 少数,几个来自PIE*pau, 少的,小的,词源同poor, pupil, pullet.引申多种词义。
fewfew: [OE] Few traces its history back to the Indo- European base *pau-, denoting smallness of quantity or number, amongst whose other descendants are Latin paucus ‘little’ (source of English paucity [15], French peu ‘few’, and Italian and Spanish poco ‘a little’), Latin (and hence English) pauper ‘poor’, and English poor and poverty. In Germanic it produced *faw-, whose modern representatives are Swedish få, Danish faa, and English few.=> pauper, poor, povertyfew (adj.)Old English feawe (plural; contracted to fea) "not many, a small number; seldom, even a little," from Proto-Germanic *faw- (cognates: Old Saxon fa, Old Frisian fe, Old High German fao, Old Norse far, Danish faa). This is from PIE root *pau- (1) "few, little" (cognates: Latin paucus "few, little," paullus "little," parvus "little, small," pauper "poor;" Greek pauros "few, little," pais (genitive paidos) "child;" Latin puer "child, boy," pullus "young animal;" Oscan puklu "child;" Sanskrit potah "a young animal," putrah "son;" Old English fola "young horse;" Old Norse fylja "young female horse;" Old Church Slavonic puta "bird;" Lithuanian putytis "young animal, young bird"). Always plural in Old English, according to OED "on the analogy of the adverbial fela," meaning "many." Phrase few and far between attested from 1660s. Unusual ironic use in quite a few "many" (1854), earlier a good few (1803). There is likewise another dialectical use of the word few among them [i.e. "the Northern Counties"], seemingly tending to its total overthrow; for they are bold enough to say--"a good few," meaning a good many. [Samuel Pegge, "Anecdotes of the English Language," London, 1803] few (n.)"a small number of persons" (distinguished from the many), c. 1300, fewe, from few (adj.). Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. [Winston Churchill, 1940]"

Learn with these flashcards. Click next, previous, or up to navigate to more flashcards for this subject.

Next card: Case french latin english meaning accident fall sense

Previous card: Norse english fail sense opposite direction meaning germanic

Up to card list: coca 1-20200 english word,Image and sound