“How many words are there in the English language?”
The honest answer is no one knows the exact number. The English language is in a constant state of change.
Just as some words stopped being used hundreds of years ago, new words have come into existence. When I was a kid, “meh” was just a pointless jumble of letters. These days, it means boring or non-plussed.
Words from other languages become part of the English language as cultures collide. “Sushi” isn’t an English word. It’s Japanese. Neither is “cannoli.” It’s Italian. But both words are widely used and understood by English-speaking people.
People also make up words, some of which may become widely known. Beatlemania – the love of the band The Beatles – is one example. Have you heard of a poonami? I made that up. Strictly speaking, it’s a portmanteau blending together “poo” with “tsunami.” I use it to describe an event when one goes to the toilet and does heaps of poos. Well, when I go to the toilet.
Finally, and just to confuse the answer even more, we have to work out what we mean by a word. Some words have more than one meaning. Think about “bum.” It can mean a body part, a lazy person, or to request something without any expectation of paying. In this case, is bum three words or one? The mind boggles.
And it boggles even more if you consider whether a word in the past, present, or future tense should be counted as one or more words. For example, “bummed,” “bumming,” and “bum.” Bearing in mind that “bummed” and “bumming” are also words that have additional meanings to those I’ve discussed.
And don’t get me started on hyphenated words…
Perhaps the ultimate answer can be found in the Oxford English dictionary. If we stick to words currently in use, the Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989, contains full entries for 171,476 words, as well as 47,156 obsolete words.
And, despite researchers from Harvard University and Google estimating a total of 1,022,000 words in 2010, the average person only uses somewhere in the region of 20,000 to 30,000 words.
So what does the number of words in the English language really mean anyway?
