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@ljwrites "few" has to be more than one, and it has to be nonspecific. So "few" has to be two or three, at least. "Several" has to be more than "few". So four or more, at minimum. That makes five or more seem pretty close to the minimum range?

@rowyn Why does "several" have to be more than "few," though? That sense seems to be related to one of the meanings of "several" as "many." https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/several

@ljwrites because few is a small number and several is a larger number and the dictionary is wrong here

Few < several < many

@rowyn @ljwrites I always felt like 'several' was a foggy quantifier but it wasn't until today that I realised that it's useless and I hate it

@vicorva @ljwrites how dare

Dictionary is wrong, this is not how you use words

@rowyn @vicorva @ljwrites I think "few" is more context dependent than "several", too. "Few people would argue" is potentially hundreds of thousands of people all told, but I can't think of a time where "several people" would naturally mean more than about a dozen. "Few" and "many" are comparisons to something, often implied, whereas "several" is more like "a couple", it's an imprecise number, but an absolute one

@rowyn @vicorva @andrewt @ljwrites i think the difference for few is whether you have an “a” in front — “a few people agree” clearly implies you mean a small countable number whereas “few people agree” (to me at least lol) does not

@Satsuma @rowyn @andrewt @ljwrites definitely!