few vs thousands of

few

det
  • Obscuring one to two oktas (eighths) of the sky. 

  • There are a few cars (=some, but a relatively small number) in the street. 

  • An indefinite, but usually small, number of. 

  • Not many; a small (in comparison with another number stated or implied) but somewhat indefinite number of. 

  • (US?) Having a 10 percent chance of measurable precipitation (0.01 inch); used interchangeably with isolated. 

pron
  • Few people, few things. 

thousands of

How often have the words few and thousands of occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )