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All she wanted was a few moments on her own. some, a small number
A:
Have you got any money?
some, a small amount
B:
Yes, a little.
A:
Have you got any money?
not much/almost nothing
B:
No, very little.
We use a little with singular uncountable nouns. We use a few with plural
countable nouns:
Mary said nothing, but she drank some tea and ate a little bread.
See also:
Nouns: countable and uncountable
Little, few with a noun
We use little with uncountable nouns. We use few with plural countable nouns.
They are used in formal contexts:
Few cities anywhere in Europe can match the cultural richness of Berlin.
We can use (a) little and (a) few as pronouns. We can use them to substitute
for a noun when it is obvious from the context:
After that, she began to tell them a little about her life in Scotland, particularly
her life with the Rosenblooms.
Dont take all the strawberries. Just have a few. (Just have a few
strawberries.)
Little and few are not very common without a noun. We use them in formal
contexts:
See also:
Determiners followed by pronouns
Determiners and singular countable nouns
Determiners and singular countable or uncountable nouns
Substitution
We use of with (a) little and (a) few when they come before articles (a/an, the),
demonstratives (this, that), possessives (my, your) or pronouns (him, them):
Put the flour into a bowl, blend with a little of the milk, beat in the egg yolks,
then the sugar and the rest of the milk.
A little: adverb
See also:
A bit
Adverbs
We use a little before adjectives and adverbs to modify them. It is more formal
than a bit:
See also:
A bit
Much, many, a lot of, lots of: quantifiers
Little: adjective
Youre going to have a little baby brother, Martha, her mother told her one
day.
Little and small have similar meanings. We use small to refer only to size. We
use littleto refer to size, but also to express a positive emotion (especially with
words like beautiful, lovely, wonderful):
Theres a wonderful little caf a the end of the street. (preferred to: Theres a
wonderful small caf at the end of the street.)