Fewer vs less: when to use each, the exceptions and a quiz

Use fewer with plural nouns you can count one by one: fewer errors, fewer people, fewer than ten chapters. Use less with things you measure as a whole: less time, less water, less noise. The memory trick: if you would say many, write fewer; if you would say much, write less. The big exception is a number that works as an amount, so you spend less than $50, wait less than three weeks and write 250 words or less.

The difference shows best with the two side by side: This pack has fewer bottles than the old one, and it holds less than two liters. The bottles are counted one by one, so fewer. The two liters measure an amount of water, so less, even with a number in front. Most of the exceptions below follow from that second half.

Fewer vs less at a glance

Count nouns and mass nouns

The rule rests on two kinds of noun. Count nouns have a plural and take a number: one chair, three chairs. Mass nouns, also called uncountable nouns, name a substance, a quality or a collection as a whole: furniture, patience, luggage. If you can put a number in front of a word and make it plural, it usually takes fewer; the exceptions for amounts come below.

Advice is a classic mass noun, which is why it takes less and never takes an (see advice vs advise). Some nouns are both, and the meaning shifts with the grammar. Fewer coffees means fewer cups; less coffee means a smaller amount of it. The same goes for fewer cakes and less cake, fewer papers and less paper, fewer experiences and less experience. Pick the word that matches what you are actually counting.

When less is right with numbers

A number doesn't settle the question. When it describes an amount, a total you would measure rather than separate items, less is normal. Merriam-Webster's usage note gives cases such as less than 3 miles, less than an hour and even less than 50,000 people, where the things are “thought of as amounts rather than numbers.”

• Time: The flight takes less than three hours. Three hours is one stretch of time, not three separate objects.
• Money: I had less than $50 in my wallet. But: I had fewer than 50 one-dollar bills, because now you are counting bills.
• Distance and weight: The trail is less than 5 miles long. The parcel weighs less than 2 kilos.
• “Or less” after a number: Answer in 250 words or less. Merriam-Webster lists this idiom, and 3 items or less, among the cases where less is preferred. On a checkout sign, then, 10 items or less is a style choice rather than an error. A house style that applies the count rule everywhere writes 10 items or fewer, and Up to 10 items, the wording Tesco switched to in 2008, avoids the choice altogether. Whichever you pick, note it on your style sheet.
• Fractions and percentages: the noun after of usually decides. Less than a third of the budget, but fewer than a third of the members.
• One less: That's one less thing to worry about. One fewer follows the strict rule, but it is rare and can sound stiff.

Set phrases with fewer and less

Examples of fewer and less

Fewer, with count nouns:

1. This draft has fewer typos than the last one.
2. Fewer than half the applicants finished the test.
3. We had fewer subscribers in March, but they opened more emails.
4. Fewer people take the night train since the timetable changed.
5. She made fewer mistakes once she stopped writing after midnight.
6. Choose the plan with the fewest steps.
7. There are fewer than ten copies of the first printing left.

Less, with mass nouns and amounts:

8. The chapter needs less explanation and more scene.
9. We spent less money on printing this year.
10. Use less salt; the stock is already salty.
11. There is less traffic after nine.
12. I have less patience for long meetings than I used to.
13. The route is less than 5 miles.
14. The interview lasted less than an hour.
15. The essay must be 500 words or less.
16. The repair cost less than $200.

Less as an adverb, or in front of an adjective:

17. We meet less often now.
18. The cheaper paper is less durable.

Both in one sentence:

19. With fewer cars on the road, there is less noise on the street.
20. Fewer meetings left us less tired and gave us more time to write.
21. With fewer readers, the magazine took in less revenue.

Mistakes to watch for

Mistakes with these two hide in sentences you have read too often to see: a product page promising “less steps,” a report with “less errors than last year.” Select the paragraph, press ⌘K and ask the Strokes Assistant to change less to fewer only where the noun is counted, leaving time, money and distance alone.

Another pair that turns on measuring is further vs farther; for a pair where one spelling is simply wrong, see principal vs principle.

Quick quiz: fewer or less?

1. We need ____ chairs than last year.
2. The new printer uses ____ ink.
3. There were ____ than 30 people at the reading.
4. The flight takes ____ than two hours.
5. Ten items or ____. (a checkout sign)
6. She's taking ____ classes this term and spending ____ time on campus.
7. My grandmother worries ____ than she used to.
8. The app crashed ____ times after the update.
9. The town spends ____ than a third of its budget on roads.
10. That's one ____ email to answer.

Where the rule came from

The rule careful editors apply is younger and looser than most people think. For most of its history, English used less with plural nouns as well. The Oxford English Dictionary's oldest example of less with a countable noun comes from King Alfred the Great, in 888, in a line that translates as “with less words or with more, whether we may prove it.” In Old English the construction was closer to “less of words,” but once that grammar faded it was plain less words, and writers used it for centuries.

The rule arrived in 1770, when Robert Baker wrote about less in his Reflections on the English Language. Note how he frames it:

“I should think,” “appears to me”: Baker was stating a preference. It is now the traditional rule, and formal writing still follows it. Oxford's learner's dictionary puts the situation mildly: people often use less with countable nouns, and some people consider this incorrect. Guides that describe how people actually write are cooler about it: the Cambridge Guide to English Usage (2004) says the pressure to replace less with fewer has grown “out of all proportion” to any real ambiguity.

Fewer and less in classic writing

Shakespeare used fewer the way Baker recommended, some 170 years before Baker wrote, and a line of Browning's that became a proverb uses less for an amount.

Men are counted, so fewer. The king's logic is arithmetic: divide the same honor among fewer soldiers and each one gets more of it.

Here less is a noun meaning a smaller amount. The lines just before it say other painters manage “so much less” than Andrea, and the line after it admits that “there burns a truer light of God in them.” Their less is worth more. Nobody would write “fewer is more,” because that kind of achievement isn't something you count.