I'm on a trip to map different cardinalities to single-word quantifiers. In that context, I'm wondering if there is a word to say "zero or more", e.g. the same as what once is to "one and only one".
For instance, instead of having to write "In the input, letters can be separated by zero, one, or many spaces", it would be shorter to write "[...] letters can be separated by ??? spaces".
According to Thesaurus and Cambridge Dictionary, several and its synonyms could fit:
Several
An amount that is not exact but is fewer than many.
More than two and fewer than many; some.Few
Some, or a small number of something.
Small number or not many.Any
Some, or even the smallest amount or number of something.Many
To mean "a large number of".Manifold
Many and of several different types.Sparse
Small in numbers or amount, often spread over a large area.
My understanding of these definitions leads me to think that the words could be approximately ordered:
0 < 1 < 2 < *
| | |- many
| | |- manifold
| |- several
| |- some
| |- few
| |- sparse
|- any
I'm already following a path, but I was hoping to find better candidates here.
0 > None
0 .. 1 > Optional
0 .. N > Any
1 > Once
1 .. N > Several