Most common words in English

The list below of most common words in English cannot be definitive. It is based on an analysis of the Oxford English Corpus of over a billion words, and represents one study done by Oxford Online, associated with the Oxford English Dictionary.^[1] This source includes writings of all sorts from "literary novels and specialist journals to everyday newspapers and magazines and from Hansard to the language of chatrooms, emails, and weblogs",^[2] unlike some sources which use texts from only specific sources.^[3]

The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists claims that the first 25 words make up about one-third of all printed material in English, and that the first 100 make up about one-half of all written material.^[4]

Note that "word" may mean either a word form (essentially, a distinct spelling), or a lexeme (essentially, a "base" word or dictionary-entry). For instance the lexeme "be", listed below, includes occurrences of "are", "is", "were", "was", etc.^[5] Note also that these top 100 lemmas listed below account for 50% of all the words in the Oxford English Corpus.^[1]

Rank Word 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

Rank Word 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

Rank Word 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

Rank Word 61 people 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

Rank Word 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

Source:^[1]

Parts of speech

Nouns

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

Verbs

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

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

Prepositions

1. to
2. of
3. in
4. for
5. on
6. with
7. at
8. by
9. from
10. up
11. about
12. into
13. over
14. after
15. beneath
16. under
17. above

Others

1. the
2. and
3. a
4. that
5. I
6. it
7. not
8. he
9. as
10. you
11. this
12. but
13. his
14. they
15. her
16. she
17. or
18. an
19. will
20. my
21. one
22. all
23. would
24. there
25. their

Source:^[1]

See also

• A General Service List of English Words
• Basic English
• Dolch Word List
• Frequency analysis
• Word lists by frequency
• Letter frequencies
• Number of words in English
• Oxford English Corpus
• Swadesh list
• Zipf's law

References

1. The OEC: Facts about the language. Retrieved June 22, 2011.
2. AskOxford.com: The Oxford English Corpus. Retrieved June 22, 2006.
3. Top 1000 words in UK English.
4. The First 100 Most Commonly Used English Words.
5. Benjamin Zimmer. June 22, 2006. Time after time after time.... Language Log. Retrieved June 22, 2006.