The several word really bugs me, it sounds like seven it acts like seven, but it isn’t seven, so why does several mean just more than one? And where is it derivitive from?
Actually, “several” to me means “more than two”. One is just one, and two would be “a couple.”
Short answer: the same place as “separate”. “Several” can also mean “various”.
One < a couple < a few < several
“Several” also means things that can be severed from each other. For example, the U.S. Constitution refers to the “several States,” that is, states that have indepedent identities.
I remember this when using “several,” and avoid using the word simply to mean “many” or “an unspecified number.”
Or the legalese about a liability being “joint and several” meaning that the resposibility falls on the group as a whole and on each member of the group individually.
I don’t uderstand why anyone would be confused about a word with such a precise meaning as “several” when it refers to the number of items. After all the Merriam-Webster Collegiate says that it means “more than one” or it can mean “more than two but fewer than ‘many.’” What more do you want?
Well, several shares with sever and seperate the latin root separare.
All three words as we use them in English, relate to setting apart, or keeping apart.
My guess would be that several derived as an adjective directly from sever, specifically from sever used in the sense of cutting apart; and that several meant “more than two but fewer than many” because it referred to one thing being cut apart. In which case it could only be divided into a relatively small number of useful pieces.
Just to throw a sabot in your machinery, it seems that in common speech, Several and a few are indistinguishable, and “couple” can mean an unspecified amount, not necesarily two. E.G. “I’ll be done in a couple o’ minutes.”
A pop-culture example would be the intro to “Fresh prince of Bel-Air”:
“When a couple of guys who were up to no good, started makin’ trouble in the neighborhood” - we see four guys making trouble for Will Smith.
I’m not trying to start an arguement about whether this is Kosher Oxford English. However, we must accept the fact that a word’s meaning is that which is understood by the majority.
actually…
One < a couple < a few <= several
“several” is a very useful term in SD, when dealing with “cite”-obsessed posters. If you say things like “one” or “two” or “sixty five”, you will immediately be hit back with a “cite?” demand. However, several is by definition vague, and it would take a real anal-retentive type to respond to that with a “cite” posting.
Naturally, I’m just breezing here, no citation promised.;j
The OP asked why several meant more than one, and from where the word derived.
I’ll accept your closing statement with qualifiers: One of a word’s several meanings is that which it is understood to mean by the majority of speakers of the language of which it is part.[imagine appropriate smiley 'cause i’m grinning]