different between myriad vs few

myriad

English

Etymology

From French myriade, from Late Latin myriadis (genitive of myrias), from Ancient Greek ???????? (muriádos), genitive of ?????? (muriás, number of 10,000), from ?????? (muríos, numberless, countless, infinite).

Pronunciation

  • (UK, US) IPA(key): /?m??i.æd/, /?m??i.?d/

Noun

myriad (plural myriads)

  1. (historical) Ten thousand; 10,000 [from 16th c.]
  2. A countless number or multitude (of specified things) [from 16th c.]
    • 1914, Henry Graham Dakyns, Xenophon, Cyropaedia, Book I:
      How far he surpassed them all may be felt if we remember that no Scythian, although the Scythians are reckoned by their myriads, has ever succeeded in dominating a foreign nation ...

Related terms

  • tens of thousands

Usage notes

Used as an adjective (see below), 'myriad' requires neither an article before it nor a preposition after. Because of this, some consider the usage described in sense 2 above, where 'myriad' acts as part of a nominal (or noun) group (that is, "a myriad of animals"), to be tautological.

Translations

Adjective

myriad (not comparable)

  1. (modifying a singular noun) Multifaceted, having innumerable elements [from 18th c.]
    • 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage 1993, p. 131:
      one night he would be singing at the barred window and yelling down out of the soft myriad darkness of a May night; the next night he would be gone [...].
    • 2011 April 6–19, Kara Krekeler, "Researchers at Washington U. have 'itch' to cure problem", West End Word, 40 (7), p. 8:
      "As a clinician, it's a difficult symptom to treat," Cornelius said. "The end symptom may be the same, but what's causing it may be myriad."
  2. (modifying a plural noun) Great in number; innumerable, multitudinous [from 18th c.]
    • 2013 September 28, Kenan Malik, "London Is Special, but Not That Special," New York Times (retrieved 28 September 2013):
      Driven by a perceived political need to adopt a hard-line stance, Mr. Cameron’s coalition government has imposed myriad new restrictions, the aim of which is to reduce net migration to Britain to below 100,000.

Translations

See also

  • plethora

Swedish

Noun

myriad c

  1. a myriad

Declension

References

  • myriad in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)

myriad From the web:

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few

English

Etymology

From Middle English fewe, from Old English f?aw (few), from Proto-Germanic *fawaz (few), from Proto-Indo-European *peh?w- (few, small). Cognate with Old Saxon f? (few), Old High German fao, f? (few, little), Old Norse fár (few), Gothic ???????????????? (faus, few), Latin paucus (little, few) (whence English pauper, poor etc.). More at poor.

Pronunciation

  • (UK)
    • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /fju?/
  • (US) IPA(key): /fju/
  • Rhymes: -u?
  • Homophone: phew

Determiner

few (comparative fewer or less, superlative fewest or least)

  1. (preceded by another determiner) An indefinite, but usually small, number of.
    There are a few cars (=some, but a relatively small number) in the street.
    I was expecting a big crowd at the party, but very few people (=almost none) turned up.
    Quite a few people (=a significant number) were pleasantly surprised.
    I think he's had a few drinks. [This usage is likely ironic.]
  2. (used alone) Not many; a small (in comparison with another number stated or implied) but somewhat indefinite number of.
  3. (meteorology, of clouds) Obscuring one to two oktas (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 phenomena aloft are present--that is, not when obscuring phenomena are surface-based, such as fog.
  4. (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

  • Few is used with plural nouns only; its synonymous counterpart little is used with uncountable 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 far more than the 3 or 4 usually ascribed to it in its use with much much smaller numbers.
  • Few is grammatically affirmative but semantically negative, and it can license negative polarity items. For example, anything usually cannot be used in affirmative sentences, but can be used in sentences with few.
  • He didn't do anything to help us.
  • *He did anything to help us. (ungrammatical)
  • Few people did anything to help us.
  • *A few people did anything to help us. (ungrammatical, since a few is a different unit of meaning from few and does not license NPIs)
  • Few alone emphasises smallness of number, while a few emphasises some. For example: He's a dull man with few ideas; He's a clever man with a few ideas.

Synonyms

  • little (see usage)

Antonyms

  • many

Derived terms

  • a few
  • a good few
  • quite a few

Related terms

  • paucity
  • poor

Translations

Pronoun

few

  1. Few people, few things.
    Many are called, but few are chosen.

Antonyms

  • many

Translations

References

  • Meteorology (both senses)
    NOAA Glossary: f

Middle English

Determiner

few

  1. Alternative form of fewe

few From the web:

  • what fewer means
  • what few means
  • what fewer
  • what fewest mean
  • what few days means
  • what few companies own everything
  • what few hours mean
  • what few weeks means
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