What is the commonest word?

Based on the evidence of the Oxford English Corpus, which currently contains over 2 billion words, the 100 commonest English words found in writing around the world are as follows: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the be to of and a in that have I it for not on with he as you do at this but his by from 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 they we say her she or an will my one all would there their what so up out if about who get which go me 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 when make can like time no just him know take people into year your good some could them see other than then now look only 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 come its over think also back after use two how our work first well way even new want because any these give day most us

It's 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 it's more interesting to explore the frequency of 'content words', as shown in the list below: Nouns 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 time person year way day thing man world life 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Verbs be have do say get make go know take 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Adjectives good new first last long great little own other

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

hand part child eye woman place work week case point government company number group problem fact

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

see come think look want give use find tell ask work seem feel try leave call

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

old right big high different small large next early young important few public bad same able

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. Notice that many of these words are very common because they have more than one meaning: way and part, for example, are listed in the Concise OED as having 18 and 16 different meanings respectively. They often also form part of common phrases: some of the frequency of time, for example, comes from its use in adverbial phrases like on time, in time, last time, next time, this time, etc. Verbs As you would expect, the commonest verbs express basic concepts. Strikingly, the 25 most frequent verbs are all one-syllable words; the first two-syllable verbs are become (26th) and include (27th). Of these 25, 20 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. Adjectives Again, most of the top adjectives are one-syllable words, and 17 out of 25 derive 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'?