Fewer

How to spell fewer

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce fewer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fewer mean?

1. determinerA smaller number of countable things or people.

Fewer in a sentence

• The new policy means fewer staff are needed at the front desk.

• There were fewer cars on the motorway after the toll increase.

Where does fewer come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the comparative form of 'few', a native English word that descends from the Old English 'feawe', meaning 'not many' or 'a small number'. That Old English form goes back to a Germanic root, related to the Old High German 'fao' and ultimately tied to a much older Indo-European root that also gave Latin 'paucus', meaning 'little' or 'few', the source of words like 'paucity'. The comparative was made the ordinary English way, by adding the suffix '-er', so 'few' became 'fewer' to mean 'a smaller number of'. The traditional rule that distinguishes 'fewer' from 'less' (fewer for things you can count, less for amounts you cannot) only became a fixed point of usage advice in the 1700s, long after the word itself was settled. The spelling holds no real trap beyond remembering that it ends in '-ewer', echoing 'few' plus the comparative ending.

How the word is built

• few (Old English feawe: not many)
• -er (comparative suffix)