paucus

Paucus, pauca, paucum is cited in the singular by dictionaries and almost never used in it. In practice this is a plural word: pauci, paucae, pauca, "a few, few". Treat the singular as a lemma-list convenience rather than something to write.

The neuter plural stands alone as a noun, pauca, meaning "a few things" or, in the mouth of a speaker, "a few words": pauca dicam, "I shall be brief". Comparative pauciores; the superlative paucissimi is late and rare, and classical Latin says perpauci for "very few" instead. Note the contrast pair, multi ... pauci, which does most of the rhetorical work the word is asked for. Related to paulus, "little", and to English few by shared ancestry; English paucity comes directly.