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One reduces uncountable things, the other reduces countable things.
Side-by-side comparison
"Less" is used with uncountable nouns: "less water", "less time", "less effort". It refers to a quantity without discrete units you can count individually.
Try to eat less sugar.
I have less time than I thought.
She sleeps less than eight hours a day.
"Fewer" is used with plural countable nouns: "fewer people", "fewer cars", "fewer mistakes". If you can count the items one by one, use "fewer", not "less".
There are fewer students this year.
He makes fewer mistakes now.
Fewer people voted in this election.
Common mistake
- •"There are less cars on the road" is wrong: "cars" is countable, use "fewer cars".
- •"Less" goes with uncountables (less traffic, less time).
- •"Fewer" goes with countables (fewer cars, fewer mistakes).
Trick to remember it
- •Can you use "few"? Use "fewer".
- •Can you use "little"? Use "less".
- •The pairs are: few/fewer and little/less.
Quick rule
- •Can you count the noun (people, cars, mistakes)? "Fewer".
- •Cannot count it (time, money, traffic)? "Less".
Did you know?
US supermarkets have famous express checkout signs saying "10 items or less", grammatically it should be "10 items or FEWER" because items are countable. This controversy has been active since the 1970s and has generated debates between prescriptivist linguists (who insist on "fewer") and descriptivists (who accept "less" as a colloquial variant). Some supermarkets like Whole Foods changed their signs to "10 items or fewer" to comply with the formal rule. In everyday informal speech, "less" with countable nouns is so widespread that many modern linguists consider it an accepted variant in oral contexts, though in formal and academic writing "fewer" remains the correct choice.
Practise what you learned
Exercise 1 · Pick the right one
There are _____ students in the class this year. Two have transferred.
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
I have been drinking _____ coffee lately. It was making me anxious.
Exercise 3 · Form the word
Related word pairs
One is for things you can count, the other is for things you cannot count.
'How much' asks about uncountable nouns; 'how many' asks about countable nouns.
'Little' has negative meaning (almost none); 'a little' has positive meaning (some). Both only with uncountable nouns.
"Much" is used with uncountable nouns (things that cannot be counted individually); "many" is used with countable nouns in the plural.
Bryan López
Founder of SpeakUP Academy