Sentence:  Again , I at first misconstrued this disconcertingly intense communication , and I quickly cast through my mind to account for her being able to speak , with such utter conviction , of an opinion held by my father , now <WSD>several</WSD> years deceased . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  (used with count nouns) of an indefinite number more than 2 or 3 but not many