English for Students

Frequently Used Verbs in English

What are the most Frequently Used Verbs in English?

As one 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). 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.

The Most Frequently Used Words ( VERBS ) are:

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



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. 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.


Frequently Used Nouns
Frequently Used Adjectives