as few as

idiom

—used to suggest that a number or amount is surprisingly small

The procedure is recommended by as few as one out of five doctors.

As few as half the students passed the test.

Examples of as few as in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Plaid says Layer can verify an identity and link a bank account for returning users in as few as ten seconds, compared with 30 to 60 seconds for Plaid’s standard identity verification service and 20 to 30 seconds for its standard account-linking feature. —Jeff Kauflin, Forbes, 25 Sep. 2024

Thanks to its compact growth and evergreen foliage, the fairy magnolia, for example, makes a handsome hedge that can rise as high as 12 feet in as few as seven years. —Nina Malkin, Architectural Digest, 23 Sep. 2024

The only state audit ever released publicly, seven years ago, found that based on the number of tax break recipients at the time, data centers could eventually meet the jobs requirement by collectively hiring as few as 260 workers. —Lulu Ramadan, ProPublica, 4 Aug. 2024

The project, which may open in as few as five years but could take as long as 10 years to be fully complete, will be Razon’s biggest gaming property in terms of size and his most ambitious. —Ian Sayson, Forbes, 13 Sep. 2024