English Uncovered: the hundred commonest English words
The following article is an edited down version of the brand-new English Uncovered supplement of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary Revised Eleventh Edition.
Oxford Dictionaries receive hundreds of questions every year asking about the English language. Typical questions include: How is English spelling changing? How many new words are created every year? Where do new words come from? Which word has the most meanings? You can find the answer to most of these in our Ask the Experts section. One question we are asked all the time is 'What is the commonest word?'
Based on the evidence of the billion-word Oxford English Corpus, it is possible to identify the hundred commonest English words found in writing around the world. These are listed below.
It is noticeable that many of the most frequently used words are short ones whose main purpose is to join other, longer words rather than determine the meaning of a sentence. These are known as function words. It could be said that the more interesting facts about word frequency are to be found a little further down the list, and we explore this below.
Interestingly, the analysis reveals that the vast majority of the words we use most frequently are from Old English: the basic elements of nearly any sentence that any of us utters were in place before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.
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1. the 2. be 3. to 4. of 5. and 6. a 7. in 8. that 9. have 10. I 11. it 12. for 13. not 14. on 15. with 16. he 17. as 18. you 19. do 20. at 21. this 22. but 23. his 24. by 25. from |
26. they 27. we 28. say 29. her 30. she 31. or 32. an 33. will 34. my 35. one 36. all 37. would 38. there 39. their 40. what 41. so 42. up 43. out 44. if 45. about 46. who 47. get 48. which 49. go 50. me |
51. when 52. make 53. can 54. like 55. time 56. no 57. just 58. him 59. know 60. take 61. person 62. into 63. year 64. your 65. good 66. some 67. could 68. them 69. see 70. other 71. than 72. then 73. now 74. look 75. only |
76. come 77. its 78. over 79. think 80. also 81. back 82. after 83. use 84. two 85. how 86. our 87. work 88. first 89. well 90. way 91. even 92. new 93. want 94. because 95. any 96. these 97. give 98. day 99. most 100. us |
Nouns
The commonest nouns are time, person, and year, followed by way and day (month is 40th). The majority of the top 25 nouns (15) are from Old English, and of the remainder most came into medieval English from Old French, and before that from Latin. The exception is group (French, from Italian), which did not appear until the 17th century.
Notice that many of these words are very common because they have more than one meaning: way and part, for example, are listed in this dictionary as having 18 and 16 different meanings respectively. Another reason for a word's high position on the list is that it forms part of many common phrases: most of the frequency of time, for example, comes from adverbial phrases like on time, in time, last time, next time, this time, etc.
| 1 time 2 person 3 year 4 way 5 day 6 thing 7 man 8 world 9 life 10 hand 11 part 12 child |
13 eye 14 woman 15 place 16 work 17 week 18 case 19 point 20 government 21 company 22 number 23 group 24 problem 25 fact |
A look at some pairs or groups of words makes
interesting reading:
- man is 7th, whereas child is 12th and woman 14th
- the highest-ranking body part, hand, is 10th - eye is the next, in 13th place, followed by head, at 27
- work is at number 16, whereas play and rest do not feature in the top 100!
- war is at 49, with no sign of peace
- problem is 24th, and there is no solution in sight
- friend is 30th, with no enemy or foe
- book is number 41, whereas computer does not feature in the top 100, and is below paper
- money is surprisingly low at 65, and cash is nowhere to be seen: this low ranking is perhaps explained by the fact that we have so many synonyms for money.
Verbs
As one would expect, the commonest verbs express basic concepts. Strikingly, the 25 most frequent verbs are all one-syllable words; the first twosyllable verbs are become (26th) and include (27th). Furthermore, 20 of these 25 are Old English words, and three more, get, seem, and want, entered English from Old Norse in the early medieval period. Only try and use came from Old French. It seems that English prefers terse, ancient words to describe actions or occurrences.
| 1 be 2 have 3 do 4 say 5 get 6 make 7 go 8 know 9 take 10 see 11 come 12 think |
13 look 14 want 15 give 16 use 17 find 18 tell 19 ask 20 work 21 seem 22 feel 23 try 24 leave 25 call |
Adjectives
Again, most of the top adjectives are one-syllable words, and 17 out of 25 are from Old English: only different, large, and important are from Latin. In terms of the words' meanings, great is higher in the ranking than big, probably because of its informal sense 'very good'. Little is surprisingly high at 7, as compared with small at 15. Bad is unexpectedly low at 23: is this because we have such a large choice of synonyms available for expressing 'bad things'?
| 1 good 2 new 3 first 4 last 5 long 6 great 7 little 8 own 9 other 10 old 11 right 12 big |
13 high 14 different 15 small 16 large 17 next 18 early 19 young 20 important 21 few 22 public 23 bad 24 same 25 able |
The Oxford English Corpus is a collection of real twenty-first century English and is a major part of the Oxford Language Research Programme. Its research findings are used to write and revise Oxford dictionaries, including the latest revised edition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (published 20 June 2006).
