FromLatinpaucālis(“few, little”), frompaucus, pluralpaucī(“few, little, a few, the select few, the oligarchs”), fromProto-Indo-European*peh₂w-(“few, little”), + Latin adjective suffix-ālis.
paucal (notcomparable)
- Characterized by having a small number, greater than two, of (usually equivalent) components.
- (grammar) Pertaining to a language form referring to afew or acouple of something (typically three to around ten), e.g. a small group of people.
- Coordinate terms:singular,dual,trial,plural
- first-personpaucal
- paucal number
- paucal and plural pronouns
- (linguistics) Expressing a relatively small quantity ordegree.
- Antonym:multal
2002, Rodney Huddleston, Geoffrey K. Pullum,The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language:Buttoo much can occur in the negative with apaucal meaning when there is no explicit or implicit infinitival complement:I didn't enjoy it too much is simply an informal alterant ofI didn't enjoy it very much.
paucal (uncountable)
- (grammar) A language form referring to a few of something (three to around ten), as a small group of people; contrastsingular,dual,trial, andplural.
- “paucal”, inOneLook Dictionary Search.
paucal (femininepaucale,masculine pluralpaucaux,feminine pluralpaucales)
- paucal
