1

During typical conversation, how would one define couple, few and several? I have read the actual definitions; however, they appear to be a bit vague. My thoughts are:

  • A couple is two.
  • A few is three to five.
  • Several is six to 11.
  • After 11 is obviously a dozen...

What is the consensus among us rational people? Please do not get too literal.

Hellion
  • 59,365
Dave Friedman
  • 21
  • 1
    None of your "definitions" is correct in any way. There's no relation between the broadly-defined commonly-used idiomatic expressions a couple, a few, several, ... and discrete numbers. There's a good reason why the dictionaries are "a bit vague:" the words are supposed to give a vague idea, not put a concrete number on something. You get the idea. – Kris Feb 12 '15 at 06:08
  • If I'm talking about a group of five people, and four of them drink beer, that is not a few of them. I agree that assigning definite numbers to these expressions is futile. The only one that literally would give a number is indeed a couple but even that is not always two. If I go out with a couple of people, there's likely more than three in total. (If I go out with a couple, there are exactly three of us though!) – oerkelens Feb 12 '15 at 07:52
  • @oerkelens I have no period of this but it seems from the UK that the use of "couple" to mean more than 2 is more prevalent -- or more accepted -- in the US than here. – Chris H Feb 12 '15 at 09:05

0 Answers0