Frequently Asked Questions
Words
What is the frequency of the letters of the alphabet in English? |
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The inventor of Morse code, Samuel Morse (1791-1872), needed to know this so that he could give the simplest codes to the most frequently used letters. He did it simply by counting the number of letters in sets of printers' type. The figures he came up with were:
| 12,000 |
E |
2,500 |
F |
| 9,000 |
T |
2,000 |
W, Y |
| 8,000 |
A, I, N, O, S |
1,700 |
G, P |
| 6,400 |
H |
1,600 |
B |
| 6,200 |
R |
1,200 |
V |
| 4,400 |
D |
800 |
K |
| 4,000 |
L |
500 |
Q |
| 3,400 |
U |
400 |
J, X |
| 3,000 |
C, M |
200 |
Z |
However, this gives the frequency of letters in English text, which is dominated by a relatively small number of common words (see What are the commonest English words?). For word games, it is often the frequency of letters in English vocabulary, regardless of word frequency, which is of more interest. We did an analysis of the letters occurring in the words listed in the main entries of the Concise Oxford Dictionary (11th edition revised, 2004) and came up with the following table:
| E |
11.1607% |
56.88 |
M |
3.0129% |
15.36 |
| A |
8.4966% |
43.31 |
H |
3.0034% |
15.31 |
| R |
7.5809% |
38.64 |
G |
2.4705% |
12.59 |
| I |
7.5448% |
38.45 |
B |
2.0720% |
10.56 |
| O |
7.1635% |
36.51 |
F |
1.8121% |
9.24 |
| T |
6.9509% |
35.43 |
Y |
1.7779% |
9.06 |
| N |
6.6544% |
33.92 |
W |
1.2899% |
6.57 |
| S |
5.7351% |
29.23 |
K |
1.1016% |
5.61 |
| L |
5.4893% |
27.98 |
V |
1.0074% |
5.13 |
| C |
4.5388% |
23.13 |
X |
0.2902% |
1.48 |
| U |
3.6308% |
18.51 |
Z |
0.2722% |
1.39 |
| D |
3.3844% |
17.25 |
J |
0.1965% |
1.00 |
| P |
3.1671% |
16.14 |
Q |
0.1962% |
(1) |
The third column represents proportions, taking the least common letter (q) as equal to 1. The letter E is over 56 times more common than Q in forming individual English words.
The frequency of letters at the beginnings of words is different again. There are more English words beginning with the letter 's' than with any other letter. (This is mainly because clusters such as 'sc', 'sh', 'sp', and 'st' act almost like independent letters.) The letter 'e' only comes about halfway down the order, and the letter 'x' unsurprisingly comes last.
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Are there any English words containing the same letter three times in a row?
Are there any words in the English language that use all five vowels with no intervening consonants?
Are there any words that only exist in the plural form?
Are there any words that rhyme with orange?
Are there words that contain the letter 'q' without a 'u' following it?
Can a DNA string be considered the longest word in English?
Does 'bimonthly' mean 'twice a month' or 'every two months'?
Female cattle are cows, male cattle are bulls. But what is the word for an individual of arbitrary sex here?
How do you describe a person who does not eat meat, but eats fish?
How many is a billion?
Is 'bookkeeper' the only English word with three consecutive repeated letters?
Is 'deliverables' a real word?
Is there a term for the study of love?
Is there a word for a baby hedgehog?
Is there a word like 'siblings' for nephews and nieces collectively?
Is there a word which describes the fear of Friday the 13th?
Is there an eight letter word with five vowels in a row?
What English words end in -dous?
What English words end in -shion?
What are the commonest English words?
What comes after once, twice, thrice?
What comes after primary, secondary, tertiary?
What is the collective term for a group of cats?
What is the difference between a 'street' and a 'road'?
What is the feminine equivalent of a misogynist?
What is the feminine equivalent of brethren?
What is the feminine equivalent of fraternal?
What is the frequency of the letters of the alphabet in English?
What is the longest English word containing no letter more than once?
What is the longest English word?
What is the longest one-syllable English word?
What is the name for a sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet?
What is the name for a word containing two capital letters (like WordPad)?
What is the only word in the English language that ends with the letters -mt?
What is the opposite of exceed?
What is the opposite of hibernation?
What is the opposite of juvenilia?
What is the opposite of nocturnal?
What is the opposite of uxorious?
What is the proper term for a word that has two opposing meanings?
What is the term for a new word constructed by combining parts of existing words?
What is the term used for a prompt composed by rearranging the first letters of the points to be remembered?
What is the word for a fear of ... ?
What is the word for a word that has multiple meanings based upon how it is pronounced?
What is the word for a word which is another word spelt backwards?
What is the word for people who collect ... ?
What is the word for words which sound like they are?
What is the word that describes when two words that mean the opposite of each other are placed together?
What word contains the five vowels (a, e, i, o,u) in the right order?
What words in the English language contain two u's in a row?
Why does 'unisex' refer to something to do with both sexes, not just one sex?
If, after browsing the FAQs, you still can't find the answer to your question then submit your query to the AskOxford Language Query team.
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