Sometimes people will try to tell me that “few” really means “three”; so, for instance, if you say you have a few dollars, you have three dollars; no more, no less. I say this is ridiculous, but I’m wondering how this idea of few = three originated?
My wife says the same thing… her rule is
Couple = 2 (well ok i can see that)
Few=3 um huh?
Several = 7 or more althight this is just getting silly…
i have no idea where this came from
I never heard this definition. I consider few to be more than a couple but not a lot. And the definition of a lot varies with the objects - 10 is not a lot of M&Ms but it is a lot of unmatched socks.
How’s that for adding little to the discussion?
I’m mainly posting so you can have a “few” responses. 
I always thought of a couple as 2, a few as 3 to about 6 or so, then “Some” and “alot”…
didn’t help at all, did I?
Some one smarter than I should check out the Bible. There is a passage that says “A few as in eight” prove me wrong or right. MTS
1 Peter 3:20
To be honest, I used to think
2 - couple
3-6 - few
7+ - several
Of course, it is all relative. If you are talking people killed in war, then “a few casualties” will mean more than 6…
Funny, I used to feel that “several” meant about 7…I guess maybe because it sounds like “seven”…?
My whole family uses these definitions.
I’m not sure but I think it was Shel Silverstien who said:
Two’s company;
Three’s a crowd;
Four’s too many;
And five’s not allowed.
Biffer is right; it depends on the context. Sometimes you’ll hear someone say, “A few people believe…” followed by a National Enquirer headline (JFK was killed by aliens, Elvis lives in Kalamazoo). Unfortunately, “few” in this context almost certainly means more than 6. In some cases it could be millions.
But if you say you spent the weekend with a few friends, it must be more than 2 (otherwise it’d be a couple) and less than a lot of friends.
On a side note, it infuriates me when people get inistent about “couple” = 2.
Let’s face it. It’s just not used that way all the time in real speech. Yes, we say “Those two people make a cute couple,” but it’s nonsense to assume others MUST know that you mean EXACTLY 2 when you say, “Can I have a couple bucks?”, etc.–i.e., when the items being counted by “couple” are not inherently a pair (as two people who are dating are, for instance).
That is all.