Top 2000 Word Families

A word-family is a grouping of words derived from the same base. For example, active, actively, activities, and activity are all in the same word-family. The following list of words are the parent form of all the words found in the top 2265 frequently used words, which totaled 1867 word families.

The frequency number is how often the word appears out of 250,000 words. For example if you divide 250,000 by 9243, then we can see that the word "the" appears once in every 27 words. However, this number should only be used as a general guide. The numbers can change depending on the topic, demographic, and many other variables. Although the number cannot be accurate, it can be used to provide insight into the frequency of words in relation to other words.

The Type column refers to what type of word it is. In many cases, a word can be multiple types. The first one listed is more frequently used than the second. For example, the word "can" is used as an auxiliary verb such as, "I can ride a bike." Also, it is a noun such as can of food. In this particular case, "can" is used commonly in both ways, but it is more frequently used as an auxiliary verb. In some cases, the third or fourth type might not be used regularly.

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