Quantitative Adjectives: How Many and How Much
A quantitative adjective tells you how many or how much. Three attempts, enough time, several reasons, no excuse.
Almost every difficulty with them comes from a single distinction: whether the noun can be counted.
Countable and uncountable
Countable nouns have a plural and can take a number – one chair, four chairs. Uncountable nouns do not – there is no four furnitures. Quantitative adjectives split along the same line, and using the wrong one is the most audible error in the whole category.
| Countable only | Uncountable only | Either |
|---|---|---|
| many, few, fewer, several, both, each | much, little, less, a great deal of | some, any, enough, all, more, most, no, plenty of |
- Correct: many mistakes, much patience
- Correct: fewer interruptions, less noise
- Wrong: less interruptions, much mistakes
Fewer and less
This is the pair people argue about. The rule is simple: fewer for things you can count, less for things you measure. Fewer cars, less traffic. Fewer coins, less money.
There are genuine exceptions, and they are not sloppiness. Less is standard with amounts of time, money, distance and weight even though those are technically countable, because they are being treated as a single quantity: less than ten miles, less than six months, less than forty pounds. Nobody writes fewer than ten miles.
Few, a few, little, a little
The article changes the meaning to almost its opposite, which surprises learners and occasionally trips native speakers writing carefully.
| Phrase | Implies | Example |
|---|---|---|
| few | not many – negative | Few people came. (disappointing) |
| a few | some – positive | A few people came. (a decent turnout) |
| little | hardly any – negative | There is little hope. |
| a little | some – positive | There is a little hope. |
Numbers are quantitative adjectives too
Three in three attempts is doing exactly the same job as several. So are ordinals – the third attempt – and they sit at the front of the noun phrase, after any demonstrative or possessive: my first three attempts.
One point of style: spell out numbers under ten in running prose and use figures above, unless a house style says otherwise. Three attempts, 27 attempts. Mixing the two in one sentence looks careless, so when a sentence has both, pick one form for all of them.
For how quantitative adjectives sit among the other types, see what an adjective is.
Practice
Choose the correct word. Answers below.
- There were (fewer / less) complaints this quarter.
- We have (fewer / less) than six months to finish.
- (Many / Much) of the evidence was circumstantial.
- She had (little / a little) hope left, and it kept her going.
- (Few / A few) colleagues bothered to reply, which was disappointing.
Answers
| # | Answer | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | fewer | complaints can be counted |
| 2 | less | time is treated as a single quantity |
| 3 | Much | evidence is uncountable |
| 4 | a little | the positive sense – some hope remained |
| 5 | Few | the negative sense, which the word disappointing confirms |
Checked against Merriam-Webster, the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook. Spotted an error? Tell us — see our editorial policy.
