Few and far between
Meaning
Occurring or existing infrequently and sporadically, often with significant gaps in time or space.
Origin
Imagine the sparse landscape of 17th-century exploration, where valuable resources or familiar faces were often both scarce in number and widely dispersed. The phrase 'few and far between' captured this exact reality, melding the scarcity of 'few' with the vast, separating distances implied by 'far between'. It wasn't a grand invention, but rather a keen observation of the world, codified into a pithy idiom. By 1656, Thomas Blount's Glossographia had already documented its common use, marking its swift adoption into the English language as a powerful way to describe anything from rare commodities to infrequent events, making the intangible concept of rarity strikingly tangible.
Examples
- Job opportunities in her specialized field were few and far between, making her search quite challenging.
- Authentic medieval artifacts are few and far between in most private collections.