See few and far between in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for few and far between meaning in English (4.5kB)
{
"etymology_text": "Attested at least since the 17th century. Was originally reserved for physical objects, such as houses, appearing with wide gaps between, but today it is also applied to more abstract things. Being rare also implies that the average gaps between the objects are wide.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "fewer and further between",
"tags": [
"comparative"
]
},
{
"form": "fewer and farther between",
"tags": [
"comparative"
]
},
{
"form": "fewest and furthest between",
"tags": [
"superlative"
]
},
{
"form": "fewest and farthest between",
"tags": [
"superlative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "fewer and further between",
"2": "fewer and farther between",
"sup": "fewest and furthest between",
"sup2": "fewest and farthest between"
},
"expansion": "few and far between (comparative fewer and further between or fewer and farther between, superlative fewest and furthest between or fewest and farthest between)",
"name": "en-adj"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English coordinated pairs",
"parents": [
"Coordinated pairs",
"Terms by etymology"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"parents": [
"Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"parents": [
"Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Mandarin terms with redundant transliterations",
"parents": [
"Terms with redundant transliterations",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1909, John Claude White, Sikhim and Bhutan, page 15",
"text": "There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, and I have met several lamas, notably the Phodong Lama of Sikhim and others like him, men who were thoroughly capable, who acted up to their principles, and whom I thoroughly respected, but I am sorry to say such men were few and far between.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1950 May, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 300",
"text": "On a line like the Santa Fe, in such desert country as that on the Chicago-Los Angeles main line through Arizona and New Mexico, stations are few and far between, and at many of them one or two employees are the only permanent staff.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1979 August, Michael Harris, “A line for all reasons: the North Yorkshire Moors Railway”, in Railway World, page 414",
"text": "As with other railways, more Mk 1s are urgently required but disposals by BR are few and far between at present.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2010 December 29, Mark Vesty, “Wigan 2 - 2 Arsenal”, in BBC",
"text": "The gear change never happened and although chances were few and far between in the second half it looked like below-par Arsenal would escape the DW Stadium with three points - especially when N'Zogbia was sent off with 12 minutes to play.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Rare and scarce; hard to find."
],
"id": "en-few_and_far_between-en-adj-sGkQwFHI",
"links": [
[
"Rare",
"rare"
],
[
"scarce",
"scarce"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Rare and scarce; hard to find."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "thick and fast"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "infrequent"
},
{
"word": "scarce"
},
{
"word": "uncommon"
},
{
"word": "rare"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "shǎozhīyòushǎo",
"sense": "rare and scarce",
"word": "少之又少"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "rare and scarce",
"word": "harvassa"
},
{
"code": "ka",
"lang": "Georgian",
"roman": "aka-ik",
"sense": "rare and scarce",
"word": "აქა-იქ"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "rare and scarce",
"tags": [
"masculine",
"plural"
],
"word": "fáir og strjálir"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "rare and scarce",
"word": "rzadki"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-few and far between.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7d/En-au-few_and_far_between.ogg/En-au-few_and_far_between.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/En-au-few_and_far_between.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "few and far between"
}
{
"etymology_text": "Attested at least since the 17th century. Was originally reserved for physical objects, such as houses, appearing with wide gaps between, but today it is also applied to more abstract things. Being rare also implies that the average gaps between the objects are wide.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "fewer and further between",
"tags": [
"comparative"
]
},
{
"form": "fewer and farther between",
"tags": [
"comparative"
]
},
{
"form": "fewest and furthest between",
"tags": [
"superlative"
]
},
{
"form": "fewest and farthest between",
"tags": [
"superlative"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "fewer and further between",
"2": "fewer and farther between",
"sup": "fewest and furthest between",
"sup2": "fewest and farthest between"
},
"expansion": "few and far between (comparative fewer and further between or fewer and farther between, superlative fewest and furthest between or fewest and farthest between)",
"name": "en-adj"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "adj",
"related": [
{
"word": "thick and fast"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English adjectives",
"English coordinated pairs",
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"English terms with quotations",
"Mandarin terms with redundant transliterations"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1909, John Claude White, Sikhim and Bhutan, page 15",
"text": "There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, and I have met several lamas, notably the Phodong Lama of Sikhim and others like him, men who were thoroughly capable, who acted up to their principles, and whom I thoroughly respected, but I am sorry to say such men were few and far between.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1950 May, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 300",
"text": "On a line like the Santa Fe, in such desert country as that on the Chicago-Los Angeles main line through Arizona and New Mexico, stations are few and far between, and at many of them one or two employees are the only permanent staff.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1979 August, Michael Harris, “A line for all reasons: the North Yorkshire Moors Railway”, in Railway World, page 414",
"text": "As with other railways, more Mk 1s are urgently required but disposals by BR are few and far between at present.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2010 December 29, Mark Vesty, “Wigan 2 - 2 Arsenal”, in BBC",
"text": "The gear change never happened and although chances were few and far between in the second half it looked like below-par Arsenal would escape the DW Stadium with three points - especially when N'Zogbia was sent off with 12 minutes to play.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"Rare and scarce; hard to find."
],
"links": [
[
"Rare",
"rare"
],
[
"scarce",
"scarce"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) Rare and scarce; hard to find."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-few and far between.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/7/7d/En-au-few_and_far_between.ogg/En-au-few_and_far_between.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/En-au-few_and_far_between.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "infrequent"
},
{
"word": "scarce"
},
{
"word": "uncommon"
},
{
"word": "rare"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "shǎozhīyòushǎo",
"sense": "rare and scarce",
"word": "少之又少"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "rare and scarce",
"word": "harvassa"
},
{
"code": "ka",
"lang": "Georgian",
"roman": "aka-ik",
"sense": "rare and scarce",
"word": "აქა-იქ"
},
{
"code": "is",
"lang": "Icelandic",
"sense": "rare and scarce",
"tags": [
"masculine",
"plural"
],
"word": "fáir og strjálir"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "rare and scarce",
"word": "rzadki"
}
],
"word": "few and far between"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.