POCOs

Pocos is the masculine plural form of the Spanish adjective poco, meaning small in amount or number. It is used mainly as a determiner before masculine plural nouns, as in pocos libros (few books). The feminine plural form is pocas, and the neuter form poco can function in different roles, such as an adverb or in phrases like lo poco que sabemos (the little that we know).

As a determiner, pocos conveys a limited quantity and often carries a negative or restrictive nuance. Examples include "Pocos estudiantes aprobaron el examen" (Few students passed the exam). It can be combined with negation or intensifiers to adjust emphasis, for instance "no pocos" meaning quite a few, or "tan pocos" meaning so few. Pocos can also appear with a prepositional phrase to reference a subset, such as "pocos de los invitados" (few of the guests).

Pocos can function as a pronoun in elliptical or noun-phrase contexts, standing in for a previously mentioned group. For example, "Los pocos que llegaron recibieron la noticia" uses "los pocos" as a noun phrase meaning "the few [people] who arrived." The phrase "no pocos" is a common collocation that reverses the negative sense to express a larger, positive quantity within a context.

Etymologically, poco comes from Latin paucus, with Spanish developing its plural form pocos to agree with masculine nouns. Related forms appear across Romance languages, such as poco in Italian and peu in French.

Pocos thus serves as a core term in Spanish for quantification, contrasting with un poco (a little) and otros cuantificadores such as algunos or unos.