paucis

Paucis is a Latin word form meaning “few” or “scant,” and it functions as the dative plural and ablative plural form of the adjective paucus. The base adjective pau-cus declines through gender, number, and case, with paucis serving as the plural form in the dative and ablative cases for all three genders.

In the full paradigm, the nominative plural forms are pauci (masculine), paucae (feminine), and pauca (neuter), while the genitive plural is paucorum (masculine/neuter) and paucarum (feminine). The dative plural and the ablative plural share the form paucis for all genders. Thus paucis appears most often when the adjective directly modifies a noun in the dative or ablative plural, or when used with a preposition that governs the ablative.

Usage of paucis is common in classical Latin phrases. Examples include paucis annis (in a few years), paucis diebus (in a few days), and in paucis verbis (in a few words). These phrases illustrate how paucis colors the quantity or time expressed by the accompanying noun nouns in the dative or ablative case.

Paucis is not a standalone noun or verb; it is strictly a case form of paucus. It is primarily encountered in Latin texts, where it functions within the normal rules of agreement and case. The form is part of standard Latin morphology and appears in literary, epigraphic, and scholarly contexts.