Most common words in English

This list of the most common words in English has been produced by Oxford University Press. By "words" is meant dictionary head words or lemmas.

It is based on an analysis of a body of over a billion words. It represents a study done by Oxford Online, associated with the Oxford English Dictionary.AskOxford.com: Language Facts . Retrieved June 22, 2006. 

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", unlike some sources which use texts from only specific sources.Top 1000 words in UK English .

The Reading Teachers 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.The First 100 Most Commonly Used English Words .

Note that the items listed may represent more than one actual word; they are lemmas. For instance the entry "be" contains within it the occurrences of "are", "is", "were" and "was". Benjamin Zimmer. 22 June 2006. Time after time after time.... Language Log. Retrieved June 22, 2006.  Note also that these top 100 lemmas listed below account for 50% of all the words in the Oxford English Corpus.

 Top 100 words 

 Rank  Word 1  the 2  be 3  to 4  of 5  and 6  a 7  in 8  that 9  have 10  I

 Rank  Word 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

 Rank  Word 31  or 32  will 33  an 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  when

 Rank  Word 51  me 52  make 53  can 54  like 55  time 56  no 57  just 58  him 59  know 60  take

 Rank  Word 61  person 62  into 63  year 64  your 65  good 66  some 67  could 68  them 69  see 70  other

 Rank  Word 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

 Rank  Word 91  even 92  new 93  want 94  because 95  any 96  these 97  give 98  day 99  most 100  us

Source: 

 Parts of speech 
In parentheses are their position in the overall list. Some words are not listed here because they can be used as more than one part of speech. The lists show clearly that 'function' words, like prepositions and connectives, are more common than 'content' words, like nouns, and most verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Verbs like "to be" have both content and linguistic functions. 

 Nouns 
       time (55)
       person (61)
       year  (63)
       way  (90)
       day  (98)
       thing 
       man 
       world 
       life 
       hand 
       part 
       child 
       eye 
       woman 
       place 
       work 
       week 
       case 
       point 
       company 
       number

 Verbs 	
       be  (2)
       have (9)
       do (19)
       say  (28)
       get  (47)
       make 
       go 
       know 
       take 
       see 
       come 
       think 
       look 
       want 
       give 
       use 
       find 
       tell 
       ask 
       work 
       seem 
       feel 
       try 
       leave 
       call Adjectives 
       good (65)
       first (88)
       new (92)
       last 
       long 
       great 
       little 
       own
       other 
       old 
       right 
       big 
       high 
       different 
       small 
       large 
       next
       early 
       young 
       important 
       few 
       public 
       bad 
       same 
       able

Prepositions
 to (3)
 of (4)
 in (7)
 for (12)
 on (14)
 with
 at
 by
 from
 up
 about
 into
 over
 after    
Source: 

 References 

Category:Language-related lists
Category:English words and phrases