man of few words
7
4.6
- idiom
:
hombre de pocas palabras
- He was usually regarded as a man of few words, a man who hoarded his words with the same vigilance that induced deafness when the words he heard were ones he could do without.
- man of few words, brother
- man of few words but good
He just from what I remember of my dad, he was a man of few words to be fair, but people would gravitate towards him because he was a nice mild mannered man.
- He just from what I remember of my dad, he was a man of few words to be fair, but people would gravitate towards him because he was a nice mild mannered man.
Examples
-
Phil McCrea had been a man of few words, but not unkind and not without humor.
Fiction book (1994) -
As a man of few words, James prefers listening to others rather than dominating the conversation.
-
You Grant brothers sure are men of few words.
-
My brother is a man of few words.
Fiction book (2002) -
"His brother was a man of few words."
Fiction book (2002) -
Neil was a man of few words.
-
He was a man of few words.
-
The Joplin Republican senator is a man of few words.
Blog text (28) -
From our hour-long interview, I gathered that he was a man of few words but of definite action.
Blog text (30) -
As befitted his New England heritage, Trout was a man of few words, but his Yankee reserve couldn't hide the pleasure in his voice.
Fiction book (1999)
Antonyms
How Talkative
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a man who speaks very little' is directly and compositionally derived from 'man' + 'of' + 'few' + 'words' — literally a man who has few words to say. This syntactic pattern (X of few words / X de pocas palabras) is cross-linguistically common and follows normal English composition, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents will readily understand it.
Etymology
Man of few words comes from a simple picture: a man who uses few words, so he speaks only when it matters. One popular idea says quiet people were seen as careful and wise, so the phrase now means 'a man who speaks very little' and often seems thoughtful.