Talk:several

Tea room discussion
I need to leave to my betters to determine any error in senses 5 & 6 (the last two) of this entry. They seem to be for nouns, but there may be some simple transformation that would convert them into appropriate definitions for a determiner, or I may not understand determiners at all. DCDuring TALK 18:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe the fifth one is, although it is worded oddly. A determiner can function as if it were a noun/pronoun.  The last one (6) may be a noun from a different Etymology.  Widsith might know, but it doesn't sound like the determiner to me. --EncycloPetey 21:44, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * How is this supposed to help someone? It needs at least one usage example. DCDuring TALK 23:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)


 * 5 and 6 were nouns, I have moved them. It also works as a noun in the phrase in several, but I'm not sure if that's a different sense or one of the existing ones.  Widsith 09:05, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

One usage  example? Visit Jockey. There is only  One  Sentence. 173.178.93.250 22:00, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

feveral?
"feveral" is given as an archaic spelling. Seeing that I have never heard of this variation and that the etymological origin imples an "s", I suspect that someone just misconstrued an f-like "s" of yore as an "f". 88.77.180.196 04:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Not "feveral", ſeveral. It’s the same word, but with a now-obsolete version of the letter s: ſ. —Stephen 06:22, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

More than two
To say that "several" implies more than two is ambiguous. A mathematician (and many others) will take this as ">= 2"; most others as "> 2".

This is particularly critical as there is some dispute as to where the lower limit for "several" goes: Some (including me) say two; others say three. 88.77.180.196 04:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Read again. It says "3.Consisting of a number more than two or three but not very many; diverse" in the Text. 173.178.93.250 21:46, 2 May 2011 (UTC) \_

Meaning Four,  right? 173.178.93.250 21:47, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I reckon 'several' means 'about 4 or 5' - i.e. it can borderline be applied to 3, 6, 7. That means it is pretty much synonymous with 'handful'. Bfinn (talk) 07:30, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I know a 60-year-old (in 2021) born-American native English speaker who strongly argues that "several" is more than "a few" and says it mostly refers to 5, 6, 7, and 8. In that case the lower limit of several would be 3 or 4. "More than two but not very many": what is "very many"? 10? 50? 100? 1000? 55,000? One nonillion? --User123o987name (talk) 15:02, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Several have already signed up; The lake and various of its tributaries
For Random House Learner's Dictionary of American, several is a plural noun, but it's a plural pronoun for the American Heritage Dictionary, which also shows various as a plural pronoun.

What's the best way to deal with their entries? --Backinstadiums (talk) 13:06, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

more than two or three
adj. 1. Being of a number more than two or three but not many: several miles away. https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=several --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:50, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Noun
What meaning is used in there are several to choose from? --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:27, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

RFC discussion: June 2017–February 2021
The "Determiner & Pronoun" frankenheader, added in diff, needs to be cleaned up and sorted into two separate headers. - -sche (discuss) 14:47, 7 June 2017 (UTC)


 * cleaned up by undoing the above-linked edit. - -sche (discuss) 04:32, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

If the word can be both, determiner and pronoun, and if the term pronoun is used in a strict sence, then properly two PoS headers (===Determiner=== and ===Pronoun===) have to be added as in that. The definitions of the two PoS could even be very similar, but the examples would differ. Examples for the determiner should look like "several people were killed" (several + noun + verb) while for the pronoun it should look like "several were killed" (several + verb, no noun). In same cases it could be more complicated to determine the PoS because of possible ellipsis (compare with adjectives vs. nominalizations thereof). Sense 3 should indeed have a pronoun variant. By the definition I would think that sense 1 has none, while I'm not sure about 2. This should be real examples of a pronoun with a sense similar to 3, so if there are no objections, a pronoun should be attested by it:
 * It's cleaned up - but does it now again miss a PoS?
 * 2011, Daniel Baracskay, The Palestine Liberation Organization: Terrorism and Prospects for Peace in the Holy Land, p. 157 (google):
 * Several were killed in Feburary 2008 when a suicide bomber from Hamas attacked a shopping center in Dimona.
 * 1811, Edward Augustus Kendal, Pocket Encyclopedia or a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Polite Literature. Vol. I, London, p. 209 (google):
 * In 1538, a proclamation was issued against them, and several were burnt in Smithfield.
 * It's "The baptists in England ... . other sentence. In 1538 ...". Just like them is a pronoun, several should here be one too.
 * 1820, A Graphic and Historical Description of the City of Edinburgh. Vol. 1. Views in Edinburgh and its Vicinity, London, p. 128 (google):
 * Thus several were burnt for heresy during this year; and when cardinal Beaton succeeded to the see of St. Andrews, a still greater persecution ensued.
 * There it is "... authors. another sentence. Thus several ...". Anyhow, "several" should still be a pronoun in this cite.
 * (If secondary sources could be used like in some other wiktionaries, then dictionary.com with "(as pronoun; functioning as plural): ..." could be used.)
 * -84.161.54.171 18:23, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Cambridge Grammar of the English Language argues against including several and many other determiners in the word class 'pronoun', but I don't think any dictionaries follow that advice. Consider this from page 421:
 * "The fused-head analysis avoids the need to recognise a large amount of overlap between the pronoun and determinative [sic] categories. In the present grammar, there are just four items that belong in both categories: what, which, we, and you." DCDuring (talk) 21:23, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Other dictionaries follow various courses: AHD, MWOnline, and WNW call it only a pronoun; Oxford (online), Cambridge (online) and Macmillan have "Determiner & Pronoun"; Collins English and COBUILD have "Determiner"; RHU shows no word class. DCDuring (talk) 22:03, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Resolved, RFC template no longer present. &mdash; surjection &lang;??&rang; 21:22, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Adverb
Archaic? obsolete? --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:11, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

but not very many
Google shows many "only several" sequences; so is very appropriate in the definition? Backinstadiums (talk) 19:59, 3 November 2022 (UTC)