Most common words in English

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Studies that estimate and ran the most common words in English examine texts written in English. Perhaps
the most comprehensive such analysis is one that was conducted against the Oxford English Corpus (OEC), a
very large collection of texts from around the world that are written in the English language. A text corpus is a
large collection of written works that are organised in a way that makes such analysis easier.

In total, the texts in the Oxford English Corpus contain more than 2 billion words.[1] The OEC includes a wide
variety of writing samples, such as literary works, novels, academic journals, newspapers, magazines,
Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, blogs, chat logs, and emails.[2]

Another English corpus that has been used to study word frequency is the Brown Corpus, which was compiled
by researchers at Brown University in the 1960s. The researchers published their analysis of the Brown Corpus
in 1967. Their findings were similar, but not identical, to the findings of the OEC analysis.

According to The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists, the first 25 words in the OEC make up about one-third of all
printed material in English, and the first 100 words make up about half of all written English.[3] According to a
study cited by Robert McCrum in The Story of English, all of the first hundred of the most common words in
English are of Anglo-Saxon origin.[4]

Some lists of common words distinguish between word forms, while others rank all forms of a word as a single
lexeme (the form of the word as it would appear in a dictionary). For example, the lexeme be (as in to be)
comprises all its conjugations (is, was, are, were, etc.), and contractions of those conjugations.[5] Note also that
these top 100 lemmas listed below account for 50% of all the words in the Oxford English Corpus.[1]

Contents
1 100 most common words
1.1 Parts of speech
1.1.1 Nouns
1.1.2 Verbs
1.1.3 Adjectives
1.1.4 Prepositions
1.1.5 Others
2 See also
2.1 Word lists
3 References
4 External links

100 most common words

Based on an analysis of the Oxford English Corpus (a large collection of texts in the English language), the 100
words that occur most frequently in written English are:[1]
 Word Parts of speech OEC rank BC rank Dolch level Fry's Sight Words

the Article 1 Pre-primer

be Verb 2 Primer

to Preposition 3 Pre-primer

of Preposition 4 Grade 1

and Conjunction 5 Pre-primer

a Article 6 Pre-primer

in Preposition 7 Pre-primer

that Conjunction et al. 8 Primer

have Verb 9 Primer

I Pronoun 10 Pre-primer

it Pronoun 11 Pre-primer

for Preposition 12 Pre-primer

not Adverb et al. 13 Pre-primer

on Preposition 14 Primer

with Preposition 15 Primer

he Pronoun 16 Primer

as Adverb, conjunction, et al. 17 Grade 1

you Pronoun 18 Pre-primer

do Verb, noun 19 Primer

at Preposition 20 Primer

this Determiner, adverb, noun 21 Primer

but Preposition, adverb, conjunction 22 Primer

his Possessive pronoun 23 Grade 1

by Preposition 24 Grade 1

from Preposition 25 Grade 1

they Pronoun 26 Primer

we Pronoun 27 Pre-primer

say Verb et al. 28 Primer

her Possessive pronoun 29 Grade 1

she Pronoun 30 Primer

or Conjunction 31 Grade 2

an Article 32 Grade 1

will Verb, noun 33 Primer

my Possessive pronoun 34 Pre-primer

one Noun, adjective, et al. 35 Pre-primer

all Adjective 36 Primer

would Verb 37 Grade 2

there Adverb, pronoun, et al. 38

their Possessive pronoun 39 Grade 2

what Pronoun, adverb, et al. 40 Primer

so Conjuntion, adverb, et al. 41 Primer

up Adverb, preposition, et al. 42 Pre-primer

out Preposition 43 Primer

if Conjunction 44 Grade 3

about Preposition, adverb, et al. 45 Grade 3

who Pronoun, noun 46 Primer

get Verb 47 Primer

which 48 Grade 2

go Verb, noun 49 Pre-primer

me Pronoun 50 Pre-primer

when 51 Grade 1

make Verb, noun 52

can 53

like 54

time 55

no 56

just Adjective 57

him Pronoun 58

know Verb, noun 59

take Verb, noun 60

people Noun 61

into 62

year Noun 63

your Possessive pronoun 64

good Adjective 65

some 66

could Verb 67

them 68

see Verb 69

other 70

than 71

then 72

now 73

look Verb 74

only 75

come Verb 76
 its Possessive pronoun 77

over Preposition 78

think 79

also 80

back 81

after Preposition 82

use Verb, noun 83

two 84

how 85

our Posessive pronoun 86

work Verb, noun 87

first 88

well Adverb 89

way 90

even 91

new Adjective et al. 92

want 93

because 94

any 95

these 96

give Verb 97

day 98

most 99

us Pronoun 100

Parts of speech

The following is the same list subdivided by part of speech.[1] The list labeled "Others" includes pronouns,
possessives, articles, modal verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions.

Nouns Verbs Adjectives Prepositions Others

1. time 1. be 1. good 1. to 1. the

2. person 2. have 2. new 2. of 2. and
3. year 3. do 3. first 3. in 3. a
4. way 4. say 4. last 4. for 4. that
5. day 5. get 5. long 5. on 5. I
6. thing 6. make 6. great 6. with 6. it
7. man 7. go 7. little 7. at 7. not
8. world 8. know 8. own 8. by 8. he
9. life 9. take 9. other 9. from 9. as
10. hand 10. see 10. old 10. up 10. you
11. part 11. come 11. right 11. about 11. this
12. child 12. think 12. big 12. into 12. but
 13. eye 13. look 13. high 13. over 13. his
14. woman 14. want 14. different 14. after 14. they
15. place 15. give 15. small 15. her
16. work 16. use 16. large 16. she
17. week 17. find 17. next 17. or
18. case 18. tell 18. early 18. an
19. point 19. ask 19. young 19. will
20. government 20. work 20. important 20. my
21. company 21. seem 21. few 21. one
22. number 22. feel 22. public 22. all
23. group 23. try 23. bad 23. would
24. problem 24. leave 24. same 24. there
25. fact 25. call 25. able 25. their

See also
Basic English
Frequency analysis, the study of the frequency of letters or groups of letters
Letter frequencies
Oxford English Corpus
Swadesh list, a compilation of basic concepts for the purpose of historical-comparative linguistics
Zipf's law, a theory stating that the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in a
frequency table

Word lists
Dolch Word List, a list of frequently used English words
General Service List
Word lists by frequency

References
1. "The Oxford English Corpus: Facts about the language" (https://web.archive.org/web/20111226085859/h
ttp://oxforddictionaries.com/words/the-oec-facts-about-the-language). OxfordDictionaries.com. Oxford
University Press. What is the commonest word?. Archived from the original (http://oxforddictionaries.co
m/words/the-oec-facts-about-the-language) on December 26, 2011. Retrieved June 22, 2011.
2. "The Oxford English Corpus" (http://www.askoxford.com/oec/mainpage/?view=uk). AskOxford.com.
Retrieved June 22, 2006.
3. The First 100 Most Commonly Used English Words (http://www.duboislc.org/EducationWatch/First100
Words.html).
4. Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, Harper Perennial, 2001, page 58
5. Benjamin Zimmer. June 22, 2006. Time after time after time... (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelo
g/archives/003274.html). Language Log. Retrieved June 22, 2006.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?

title=Most_common_words_in_English&oldid=797547520"

This page was last edited on 27 August 2017, at 19:34.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may
apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered
trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.