A small elite group.

A quantifier that can be used with count nouns and is often preceded by `a'; a small but indefinite number.

Roget 32: small, little; diminutive etc. (small in size) 193; minute; fine; inconsiderable, paltry etc. (unimportant) 643; faint etc. (weak) 160; slender, light, slight, scanty, scant, limited; meager etc. (insufficient) 640; sparing; few etc. 103; low, so-so, middling, tolerable, no great shakes; below par, under par, below the mark; at a low ebb; halfway; moderate, modest; tender, subtle.    inappreciable, evanescent, infinitesimal, homeopathic, very small; atomic, corpuscular, microscopic, molecular, subatomic.    mere, simple, sheer, stark, bare; near run.    dull, petty, shallow, stolid, ungifted, unintelligent.    ... show more

Roget 103: few; scant, scanty; thin, rare, scattered, thinly scattered, spotty, few and far between, exiguous; infrequent etc. 137; rari nantes [Lat.]; hardly any, scarcely any; to be counted on one's fingers; reduced etc. v.; unrepeated^†.    ... show more

Roget 137: unfrequent^†, infrequent; rare, rare as a blue diamond; few etc. 103; scarce; almost unheard of, unprecedented, which has not occurred within the memory of the which has not occurred within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, not within one's previous experience; not since Adam^†.    scarce as hen's teeth; one in a million; few and far between.    ... show more