According to Merriam-Webster, the most-frequently defined English words are, in descending order:
- pretentious
- ubiquitous
- love
- cynical
- apathetic
- conundrum
- albeit
- ambiguous
- integrity
- affect/effect
This list utterly delights me. It seems a remarkably human sort of list: no scientific or technical terms are present. Rather, these words – ‘pretentious’, ‘ambiguous’, ‘integrity’ – are reflections of day-to-day concerns, encounters, and difficulties. And the inclusion of ‘love’ – the only single-syllable word on the list, and the only one not of Latin or Greek origin – is particularly wonderful.
Aside from ‘love’, this list is notably skewed towards the negative aspects of human existence. Nobody wants to be described as ‘apathetic’ or ‘cynical’. Do we like our insults to be couched in rhetoric? Are our praises more straightforward than our criticisms?
