This report shows the result of an analysis of over 24,000 books published within Project Gutenberg. We used it to examine the most frequently used words in literature, as well as the most common word types in books.
What are the most common words used in books?
The verb “said” is the most frequently used in literature among the 4 main word types (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs). It accounts for 1,38% of all main words in books and 0.26% of all words used in books.
The adverb “more” is the second most used word in books, accounting for 0.99% of all main words.
The noun “man” is the third most frequently used word in books, appearing around 8.2 times for every 1,000 main words in text.
The most frequently used adjective in literature, “other”, accounts for 0.15% of all words in books and 0.80% of all main words in books, ranking number four among the most common words.
Rank
Word
Type
Word frequency
Frequency among main word types
1
said
Verb
0.26%
1.38%
2
more
Adverb
0.19%
0.99%
3
man
Noun
0.16%
0.82%
4
other
Adjective
0.15%
0.80%
5
very
Adverb
0.15%
0.76%
6
time
Noun
0.14%
0.76%
7
only
Adverb
0.13%
0.69%
8
now
Adverb
0.13%
0.69%
9
little
Adjective
0.13%
0.67%
10
then
Adverb
0.13%
0.66%
11
made
Verb
0.12%
0.62%
12
such
Adjective
0.11%
0.59%
13
great
Adjective
0.11%
0.58%
14
see
Verb
0.11%
0.57%
15
know
Verb
0.11%
0.56%
16
much
Adverb
0.10%
0.53%
17
first
Adjective
0.10%
0.51%
18
Mr
Proper noun
0.10%
0.51%
19
good
Adjective
0.10%
0.50%
20
men
Noun
0.09%
0.48%
Among 1,000 most frequently used words in literature, 832 are words falling into the 4 main categories – nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. However, these 832 words account for only 29.7% of words in terms of frequency.
The biggest difference between the number of unique words and their usage frequency among the main word classes is with proper nouns, which account for 6.4% of unique words but appear in only 1.58% of occasions among the 1,000 most used words.
Other main word types also have significantly smaller usage frequency compared to the total number of unique words they possess – verbs account for over a third of unique words (33.5%), but only appear on 10,53% of occasions in books.
Word class
Share of unique words among 1,000 most common words
Frequency among 1,000 most common words
Noun
33.50%
10.53%
Verb
23.20%
8.23%
Adjective
12.80%
4.94%
Adverb
7.30%
4.50%
Proper noun
6.40%
1.58%
Adposition
4.30%
17.76%
Pronoun
3.70%
15.28%
Auxiliary verb
2.90%
9.92%
Subordinating conjunction
1.60%
3.28%
Numeral
1.40%
0.97%
Determiner
1.20%
11.31%
Coordinating conjunction
0.60%
6.03%
Other
0.70%
0.67%
Particle
0.20%
4.93%
Interjection
0.10%
0.02%
All word types included, the word “the” is the most common word in literature, accounting for over 5.63% of all words found in books.
The second most common word in books is the adposition “of”, with a frequency of 3.40%.
Coordinating conjunction “and” is the third-most frequent word in literature, accounting for 2.99% of all written words in books.
These three words combined account for more than 12% of all words found in English-written books.
The 10 most frequent words account for over 21% of all written words in literature, while the first 178 words in terms of frequency account for more than 50% of all words found in books.
Rank
Word
Type
Word frequency
1
the
Determiner
5.63%
2
of
Adposition
3.40%
3
and
Coordinating conjunction
2.99%
4
to
Particle
2.60%
5
in
Adposition
1.74%
6
i
Pronoun
1.18%
7
that
Subordinating conjunction
1.11%
8
was
Auxiliary verb
1.01%
9
his
Pronoun
0.88%
10
he
Pronoun
0.84%
11
it
Pronoun
0.81%
12
with
Adposition
0.77%
13
is
Auxiliary verb
0.76%
14
for
Adposition
0.71%
15
as
Adposition
0.70%
16
had
Auxiliary verb
0.61%
17
you
Pronoun
0.60%
18
not
Particle
0.57%
19
be
Auxiliary verb
0.57%
20
her
Pronoun
0.52%
Most frequent word types in books
Adpositions are the most common word class in books, accounting for 17.76% of the most common 1,000 words from over 74,000 books analyzed for this report.
Pronouns make up for 15.28% of the 1,000 most frequent words from books, making them the second most common word type.
Determiners account for 11.31% of all words from analyzed books.
Roughly one in every 10 words from books is a Noun (10.56%). These 4 groups of words account for more than half of all words written in books.
Verbs appear in books in 9.49% of cases. Together with auxiliary verbs (8.64%), they would be the most frequent word class in literature.
Word class
Frequency among 1,000 most common words
Adposition
17.76%
Pronoun
15.28%
Determiner
11.31%
Noun
10.56%
Verb
9.49%
Auxiliary verb
8.64%
Coordinating conjunction
6.03%
Adverb
4.94%
Adjective
4.94%
Particle
4.93%
Subordinating conjunction
3.28%
Proper noun
1.58%
Numeral
0.97%
Other
0.23%
Interjection
0.02%
In order to increase the number of words in a person’s vocabulary, WordsRated has created several word tools, such as Word Generator From Letters. It helps get the most out of various letter combinations, especially with long words, such as 10-letter word combinations.
