Asked by: Ms. Esther Lang I
Score: 4.3/5
(50 votes)
Don’t worry, commonest is the word and many dictionaries define it. commonest (adj) — Occurring, found, or done often; prevalent. However, if you find it on Ngram, most common is more popular than commonest especially in recent years.
Is it correct to say commonest?
The comparative and superlative forms of common are usually more common and most common. Commonest is sometimes used instead of most common in front of a noun.
Do we say most common or commonest?
According to Swan (my grammar bible), common can equally be used with -er and -est as well as more and most. And it’s most common to say ‘most common’ (3,150,000). ‘Commonest’ only has 101,000. Comparatives and superlatives for words of three or more syllables invariably use more and most.
Is commonest a word UK?
Indeed, the word commonest has led a fairly different life in British English. … survey was published in 1970 by Oxford University Press, close to the height of this word’s usage in British English. It makes sense, then, that it was used in the same way that I would use most common.
What is the superlative for the word common?
Adjective. common (comparative commoner or more common, superlative commonest or most common)
33 related questions found
What part of speech is commonest?
adjective, com·mon·er, com·mon·est. widespread; general; universal: common knowledge.
What type of word is common?
adjective, com·mon·er, com·mon·est. belonging equally to, or shared alike by, two or more or all in question: common property;common interests. pertaining or belonging equally to an entire community, nation, or culture; public: a common language or history;a common water-supply system.
How do you use commonest in a sentence?
Common sentence example
- She will only utilize it for common good. …
- We have a lot in common , you know? …
- The only thing they had in common was looks! …
- I mean, we grew up together, so we have a lot in common , but… …
- Carmen took her to the doctor, but he said there was no cure for the common cold and not to worry about it.
Is OK an English word?
OK (spelling variations include okay, O.K., ok and Ok) is an English word (originally American English) denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, acknowledgment, or a sign of indifference. OK is frequently used as a loanword in other languages. … The origins of the word are disputed.
What is the most unused word?
The 15 most unusual words you’ll ever find in English
- Serendipity. This word appears in numerous lists of untranslatable words and is a mystery mostly for non native speakers of English. …
- Gobbledygook. …
- Scrumptious. …
- Agastopia. …
- Halfpace. …
- Impignorate. …
- Jentacular. …
- Nudiustertian.
What is the least common word?
1.abate: reduce or lesson. 2.abdicate: give up a position. 3.aberration: something unusual, different from the norm. 4.abhor: to really hate.
What is an example of common?
The definition of common is something that belongs to or is shared by two or more people or the community at large. An example of common is the knowledge of drivers to stop at a red light.
What are common nouns?
A common noun is the generic name for a person, place, or thing in a class or group. Unlike proper nouns, a common noun is not capitalized unless it either begins a sentence or appears in a title. … Usually, it will be quite obvious if a specific person, place, or thing is being named.
What are common nouns examples?
A common noun is a non-specific person, place, or thing. For example, dog, girl, and country are examples of common nouns. In contrast, proper nouns name a specific person, place, or thing. Common nouns are typically not capitalized, but there are two exceptions to this rule.
What is a common term?
Noun. Language regarded as very informal and restricted to a particular context or group of people. vulgarism. idiom. colloquialism.
What does commen mean?
Definition of «commen» [commen]
An old form of common.
Does common Mean same?
As adjectives the difference between common and same
is that common is mutual; shared by more than one while same is not different or other; not another or others; not different as regards self; selfsame; identical.
What type of speech is the word common?
common adjective (SHARED)
What’s the synonym for Boston?
In this page you can discover 24 synonyms, antonyms, idiomatic expressions, and related words for boston, like: capital of Massachusetts, the Hub, Hub of the Universe, beantown, Athens of America, home of the bean and the cod, cradle of liberty, Bean Town, chicago, philadelphia and baltimore.
What word has all 26 letters in it?
An English pangram is a sentence that contains all 26 letters of the English alphabet. The most well known English pangram is probably “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”. My favorite pangram is “Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes.”
What word takes 3 hours to say?
The chemical name of titin was first kept in the English dictionary, but it was later removed from the dictionary when the name caused trouble. It is now known only as Titin. Titin protein was discovered in 1954 by Reiji Natori.
Studies that estimate and rank the most common words in English examine texts written in English. Perhaps the most comprehensive such analysis is one that was conducted against the Oxford English Corpus (OEC), a massive text corpus that is written in the English language.
In total, the texts in the Oxford English Corpus contain more than 2 billion words.[1] The OEC includes a wide variety of writing samples, such as literary works, novels, academic journals, newspapers, magazines, Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, blogs, chat logs, and emails.[2]
Another English corpus that has been used to study word frequency is the Brown Corpus, which was compiled by researchers at Brown University in the 1960s. The researchers published their analysis of the Brown Corpus in 1967. Their findings were similar, but not identical, to the findings of the OEC analysis.
According to The Reading Teacher’s Book of Lists, the first 25 words in the OEC make up about one-third of all printed material in English, and the first 100 words make up about half of all written English.[3] According to a study cited by Robert McCrum in The Story of English, all of the first hundred of the most common words in English are of Old English origin,[4] except for «people», ultimately from Latin «populus», and «because», in part from Latin «causa».
Some lists of common words distinguish between word forms, while others rank all forms of a word as a single lexeme (the form of the word as it would appear in a dictionary). For example, the lexeme be (as in to be) comprises all its conjugations (is, was, am, are, were, etc.), and contractions of those conjugations.[5] These top 100 lemmas listed below account for 50% of all the words in the Oxford English Corpus.[1]
100 most common words
A list of 100 words that occur most frequently in written English is given below, based on an analysis of the Oxford English Corpus (a collection of texts in the English language, comprising over 2 billion words).[1] A part of speech is provided for most of the words, but part-of-speech categories vary between analyses, and not all possibilities are listed. For example, «I» may be a pronoun or a Roman numeral; «to» may be a preposition or an infinitive marker; «time» may be a noun or a verb. Also, a single spelling can represent more than one root word. For example, «singer» may be a form of either «sing» or «singe». Different corpora may treat such difference differently.
The number of distinct senses that are listed in Wiktionary is shown in the polysemy column. For example, «out» can refer to an escape, a removal from play in baseball, or any of 36 other concepts. On average, each word in the list has 15.38 senses. The sense count does not include the use of terms in phrasal verbs such as «put out» (as in «inconvenienced») and other multiword expressions such as the interjection «get out!», where the word «out» does not have an individual meaning.[6] As an example, «out» occurs in at least 560 phrasal verbs[7] and appears in nearly 1700 multiword expressions.[8]
The table also includes frequencies from other corpora. Note that as well as usage differences, lemmatisation may differ from corpus to corpus – for example splitting the prepositional use of «to» from the use as a particle. Also the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) list includes dispersion as well as frequency to calculate rank.
Word | Parts of speech | OEC rank | COCA rank[9] | Dolch level | Polysemy |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
the | Article | 1 | 1 | Pre-primer | 12 |
be | Verb | 2 | 2 | Primer | 21 |
to | Preposition | 3 | 7, 9 | Pre-primer | 17 |
of | Preposition | 4 | 4 | Grade 1 | 12 |
and | Conjunction | 5 | 3 | Pre-primer | 16 |
a | Article | 6 | 5 | Pre-primer | 20 |
in | Preposition | 7 | 6, 128, 3038 | Pre-primer | 23 |
that | Conjunction et al. | 8 | 12, 27, 903 | Primer | 17 |
have | Verb | 9 | 8 | Primer | 25 |
I | Pronoun | 10 | 11 | Pre-primer | 7 |
it | Pronoun | 11 | 10 | Pre-primer | 18 |
for | Preposition | 12 | 13, 2339 | Pre-primer | 19 |
not | Adverb et al. | 13 | 28, 2929 | Pre-primer | 5 |
on | Preposition | 14 | 17, 155 | Primer | 43 |
with | Preposition | 15 | 16 | Primer | 11 |
he | Pronoun | 16 | 15 | Primer | 7 |
as | Adverb, conjunction, et al. | 17 | 33, 49, 129 | Grade 1 | 17 |
you | Pronoun | 18 | 14 | Pre-primer | 9 |
do | Verb, noun | 19 | 18 | Primer | 38 |
at | Preposition | 20 | 22 | Primer | 14 |
this | Determiner, adverb, noun | 21 | 20, 4665 | Primer | 9 |
but | Preposition, adverb, conjunction | 22 | 23, 1715 | Primer | 17 |
his | Possessive pronoun | 23 | 25, 1887 | Grade 1 | 6 |
by | Preposition | 24 | 30, 1190 | Grade 1 | 19 |
from | Preposition | 25 | 26 | Grade 1 | 4 |
they | Pronoun | 26 | 21 | Primer | 6 |
we | Pronoun | 27 | 24 | Pre-primer | 6 |
say | Verb et al. | 28 | 19 | Primer | 17 |
her | Possessive pronoun | 29, 106 | 42 | Grade 1 | 3 |
she | Pronoun | 30 | 31 | Primer | 7 |
or | Conjunction | 31 | 32 | Grade 2 | 11 |
an | Article | 32 | (a) | Grade 1 | 6 |
will | Verb, noun | 33 | 48, 1506 | Primer | 16 |
my | Possessive pronoun | 34 | 44 | Pre-primer | 5 |
one | Noun, adjective, et al. | 35 | 51, 104, 839 | Pre-primer | 24 |
all | Adjective | 36 | 43, 222 | Primer | 15 |
would | Verb | 37 | 41 | Grade 2 | 13 |
there | Adverb, pronoun, et al. | 38 | 53, 116 | Primer | 14 |
their | Possessive pronoun | 39 | 36 | Grade 2 | 2 |
what | Pronoun, adverb, et al. | 40 | 34 | Primer | 19 |
so | Conjunction, adverb, et al. | 41 | 55, 196 | Primer | 18 |
up | Adverb, preposition, et al. | 42 | 50, 456 | Pre-primer | 50 |
out | Preposition | 43 | 64, 149 | Primer | 38 |
if | Conjunction | 44 | 40 | Grade 3 | 9 |
about | Preposition, adverb, et al. | 45 | 46, 179 | Grade 3 | 18 |
who | Pronoun, noun | 46 | 38 | Primer | 5 |
get | Verb | 47 | 39 | Primer | 37 |
which | Pronoun | 48 | 58 | Grade 2 | 7 |
go | Verb, noun | 49 | 35 | Pre-primer | 54 |
me | Pronoun | 50 | 61 | Pre-primer | 10 |
when | Adverb | 51 | 57, 136 | Grade 1 | 11 |
make | Verb, noun | 52 | 45 | Grade 2 [as «made»] | 48 |
can | Verb, noun | 53 | 37, 2973 | Pre-primer | 18 |
like | Preposition, verb | 54 | 74, 208, 1123, 1684, 2702 | Primer | 26 |
time | Noun | 55 | 52 | Dolch list of 95 nouns | 14 |
no | Determiner, adverb | 56 | 93, 699, 916, 1111, 4555 | Primer | 10 |
just | Adjective | 57 | 66, 1823 | 14 | |
him | Pronoun | 58 | 68 | 5 | |
know | Verb, noun | 59 | 47 | 13 | |
take | Verb, noun | 60 | 63 | 66 | |
people | Noun | 61 | 62 | 9 | |
into | Preposition | 62 | 65 | 10 | |
year | Noun | 63 | 54 | 7 | |
your | Possessive pronoun | 64 | 69 | 4 | |
good | Adjective | 65 | 110, 2280 | 32 | |
some | Determiner, pronoun | 66 | 60 | 10 | |
could | Verb | 67 | 71 | 6 | |
them | Pronoun | 68 | 59 | 3 | |
see | Verb | 69 | 67 | 25 | |
other | Adjective, pronoun | 70 | 75, 715, 2355 | 12 | |
than | Conjunction, preposition | 71 | 73, 712 | 4 | |
then | Adverb | 72 | 77 | 10 | |
now | Preposition | 73 | 72, 1906 | 13 | |
look | Verb | 74 | 85, 604 | 17 | |
only | Adverb | 75 | 101, 329 | 11 | |
come | Verb | 76 | 70 | 20 | |
its | Possessive pronoun | 77 | 78 | 2 | |
over | Preposition | 78 | 124, 182 | 19 | |
think | Verb | 79 | 56 | 10 | |
also | Adverb | 80 | 87 | 2 | |
back | Noun, adverb | 81 | 108, 323, 1877 | 36 | |
after | Preposition | 82 | 120, 260 | 14 | |
use | Verb, noun | 83 | 92, 429 | 17 | |
two | Noun | 84 | 80 | 6 | |
how | Adverb | 85 | 76 | 11 | |
our | Possessive pronoun | 86 | 79 | 3 | |
work | Verb, noun | 87 | 117, 199 | 28 | |
first | Adjective | 88 | 86, 2064 | 10 | |
well | Adverb | 89 | 100, 644 | 30 | |
way | Noun, adverb | 90 | 84, 4090 | 16 | |
even | Adjective | 91 | 107, 484 | 23 | |
new | Adjective et al. | 92 | 88 | 18 | |
want | Verb | 93 | 83 | 10 | |
because | Conjunction | 94 | 89, 509 | 7 | |
any | Pronoun | 95 | 109, 4720 | 4 | |
these | Pronoun | 96 | 82 | 2 | |
give | Verb | 97 | 98 | 19 | |
day | Noun | 98 | 90 | 9 | |
most | Adverb | 99 | 144, 187 | 12 | |
us | Pronoun | 100 | 113 | 6 |
Parts of speech
The following is a very similar list, subdivided by part of speech.[1] The list labeled «Others» includes pronouns, possessives, articles, modal verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions.
Rank | Nouns | Verbs | Adjectives | Prepositions | Others |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | time | be | good | to | the |
2 | person | have | new | of | and |
3 | year | do | first | in | a |
4 | way | say | last | for | that |
5 | day | get | long | on | I |
6 | thing | make | great | with | it |
7 | man | go | little | at | not |
8 | world | know | own | by | he |
9 | life | take | other | from | as |
10 | hand | see | old | up | you |
11 | part | come | right | about | this |
12 | child | think | big | into | but |
13 | eye | look | high | over | his |
14 | woman | want | different | after | they |
15 | place | give | small | her | |
16 | work | use | large | she | |
17 | week | find | next | or | |
18 | case | tell | early | an | |
19 | point | ask | young | will | |
20 | government | work | important | my | |
21 | company | seem | few | one | |
22 | number | feel | public | all | |
23 | group | try | bad | would | |
24 | problem | leave | same | there | |
25 | fact | call | able | their |
See also
- Basic English
- Frequency analysis, the study of the frequency of letters or groups of letters
- Letter frequencies
- Oxford English Corpus
- Swadesh list, a compilation of basic concepts for the purpose of historical-comparative linguistics
- Zipf’s law, a theory stating that the frequency of any word is inversely proportional to its rank in a frequency table
Word lists
- Dolch Word List, a list of frequently used English words
- General Service List
- Word lists by frequency
References
- ^ a b c d «The Oxford English Corpus: Facts about the language». OxfordDictionaries.com. Oxford University Press. What is the commonest word?. Archived from the original on December 26, 2011. Retrieved June 22, 2011.
- ^ «The Oxford English Corpus». AskOxford.com. Archived from the original on May 4, 2006. Retrieved June 22, 2006.
- ^ The First 100 Most Commonly Used English Words Archived 2013-06-16 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, Harper Perennial, 2001, page 58
- ^ Benjamin Zimmer. June 22, 2006. Time after time after time…. Language Log. Retrieved June 22, 2006.
- ^ Benjamin, Martin (2019). «Polysemy in top 100 Oxford English Corpus words within Wiktionary». Teach You Backwards. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ Garcia-Vega, M (2010). «Teasing out the meaning of «out»«. 29th International Conference on Lexis and Grammar.
- ^ «out — English-French Dictionary». www.wordreference.com. Retrieved November 22, 2022.
- ^ «Word frequency: based on 450 million word COCA corpus». www.wordfrequency.info. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
External links
There are two systems for the forms of comparisons of adjectives:
One-syllable adjectives such as long have long, longer, longest.
Adjectives with three and more syllables such as curious have curious, more curious, most curious.
For two-syllable adjectives there is no simple and rigid rule.
Grammarians have listed some endings where system 1 is to be used.
But, I think, people don’t have this list of endings in mind.
Though grammars say it is common, commoner, commonest
people prefer common, more common, most common.
I don’t think that the word communist has an influence in this matter. With «communist» you use different structures.
Either you say: He is a communist — or you say: the communist system.
I think people prefer «more common, most common» because it is easier to speak. Say three times «commoner, commonest»
then you probably feel that hasn’t the right «flow», somehow the two syllables with a weak vowel at the end are against the flow of
speaking.
common
(redirected from commonest)
Also found in: Thesaurus, Legal, Idioms, Encyclopedia.
com·mon
(kŏm′ən)
adj. com·mon·er, com·mon·est
1.
a. Belonging equally to or shared equally by two or more; joint: common interests.
b. Of or relating to the community as a whole; public: for the common good.
2. Widespread; prevalent: Gas stations became common as the use of cars grew.
3.
a. Occurring frequently or habitually; usual: It is common for movies to last 90 minutes or more.
b. Most widely known; ordinary: the common housefly.
4. Having no special designation, status, or rank: a common sailor.
5.
a. Not distinguished by superior or noteworthy characteristics; average: the common spectator.
b. Of no special quality; standard: common procedure.
c. Of mediocre or inferior quality; second-rate: common cloth.
6. Unrefined or coarse in manner; vulgar: behavior that branded him as common.
7. Grammar
a. Either masculine or feminine in gender.
b. Representing one or all of the members of a class; not designating a unique entity.
n.
1. commons The common people; commonalty.
2. commons(used with a sing. or pl. verb)
a. The social class composed of commoners.
b. The parliamentary representatives of this class.
3. Commons The House of Commons.
4. A tract of land, usually in a centrally located spot, belonging to or used by a community as a whole: a band concert on the village common.
5. The legal right of a person to use the lands or waters of another, as for fishing.
6. commons(used with a sing. verb) A building or hall for dining, typically at a university or college.
7. Common stock.
8. Ecclesiastical A service used for a particular class of festivals.
Idiom:
in common
Equally with or by all.
[Middle English commune, from Old French commun, from Latin commūnis; see mei- in Indo-European roots.]
com′mon·ly adv.
com′mon·ness n.
Synonyms: common, ordinary, familiar
These adjectives describe what is generally known or frequently encountered. Common applies to what takes place often, is widely used, or is well known: The botanist studied the common dandelion. The term also implies coarseness or a lack of distinction: My wallet was stolen by a common thief. Ordinary describes something usual that is indistinguishable from others, sometimes derogatorily: «His neighbors were all climbing into their cars and trucks and heading off to work as if nothing miraculous had happened and this were just another ordinary day» (Steve Yarbrough).
Familiar applies to what is well known or quickly recognized: Most children can recite familiar nursery rhymes. See Also Synonyms at general.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
common
(ˈkɒmən)
adj
1. belonging to or shared by two or more people: common property.
2. belonging to or shared by members of one or more nations or communities; public: a common culture.
3. of ordinary standard; average: common decency.
4. prevailing; widespread: common opinion.
5. widely known or frequently encountered; ordinary: a common brand of soap.
6. widely known and notorious: a common nuisance.
7. derogatory considered by the speaker to be low-class, vulgar, or coarse: a common accent.
8. (prenominal) having no special distinction, rank, or status: the common man.
9. (Mathematics) maths
a. having a specified relationship with a group of numbers or quantities: common denominator.
b. (of a tangent) tangential to two or more circles
10. (Phonetics & Phonology) prosody (of a syllable) able to be long or short, or (in nonquantitative verse) stressed or unstressed
11. (Grammar) grammar (in certain languages) denoting or belonging to a gender of nouns, esp one that includes both masculine and feminine referents: Latin sacerdos is common.
12. (Anatomy) anatomy
a. having branches: the common carotid artery.
b. serving more than one function: the common bile duct.
13. (Ecclesiastical Terms) Christianity of or relating to the common of the Mass or divine office
14. common or garden informal ordinary; unexceptional
n
15. (Physical Geography) (sometimes plural) a tract of open public land, esp one now used as a recreation area
16. (Law) law the right to go onto someone else’s property and remove natural products, as by pasturing cattle or fishing (esp in the phrase right of common)
17. (Ecclesiastical Terms) Christianity
a. a form of the proper of the Mass used on festivals that have no special proper of their own
b. the ordinary of the Mass
18. archaic the ordinary people; the public, esp those undistinguished by rank or title
19. in common mutually held or used with another or others
[C13: from Old French commun, from Latin commūnis general, universal]
ˈcommonness n
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
com•mon
(ˈkɒm ən)
adj. -er, -est,
n. adj.
1. belonging equally to, or shared alike by, two or more or all in question: common objectives.
2. pertaining or belonging equally to an entire community, nation, or culture: a common language.
3. joint; united: a common defense.
4. widespread; general; universal: common knowledge.
5. of frequent occurrence; usual; familiar: a common mistake.
6. of mediocre or inferior quality; mean: a rough, common fabric.
7. coarse; vulgar: common manners.
8. lacking rank, station, distinction, etc.; ordinary: a common soldier.
9. in keeping with accepted standards; fundamental: common decency.
10. (of a syllable) able to be considered as either long or short.
11.
a. (of a grammatical case) fulfilling different functions that in some languages would require different inflected forms: English nouns used as subject or object are in the common case.
b. of or pertaining to a word or gender that may refer to either a male or female: Frenchélève “pupil” has common gender.
c. constituting a gender comprising nouns that were formerly masculine or feminine: Dutch nouns are either common or neuter in gender.
12. bearing a similar mathematical relation to two or more entities.
13. of or pertaining to common stock.
n.
14. Often, commons. a tract of land owned or used jointly by the residents of a community, as a central square or park in a city or town.
15. the right, in common with other persons, to pasture animals on another’s land or to fish in another’s waters.
16. commons,
a. the common people; commonalty.
b. the body of people not of noble birth, as represented by the House of Commons.
c. (cap.) (used with a sing. v.) the House of Commons.
17. commons,
a. (used with a sing. v.) a large dining room, esp. at a university or college.
b. (usu. with a pl. v.) food or provisions for any group.
18. (sometimes cap.)
a. an ecclesiastical office or form of service used on a festival of a particular kind.
b. the ordinary of the Mass, esp. those parts sung by the choir.
Idioms:
in common, in joint possession or use; shared equally.
[1250–1300; Middle English comun < Anglo-French, Old French < Latin commūnis common <com- + mūnus task, duty, gift, c. mean2]
com′mon•ly, adv.
com′mon•ness, n.
syn: common, ordinary, vulgar refer, often with derogatory connotations, to what is usual or most often experienced. common applies to what is widespread or unexceptional; it often suggests inferiority or coarseness: common servants; common cloth. ordinary refers to what is to be expected in the usual order of things; it suggests being average or below average: a high price for something of such ordinary quality. vulgar means belonging to the people or characteristic of common people; it suggests low taste, coarseness, or ill breeding: vulgar manners; vulgar speech. See also general.
Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
common
If something is common, it is found in large numbers or it happens often.
His name was Hansen, a common name in Norway.
These days, it is common to see adults returning to study.
The comparative and superlative forms of common are usually more common and most common. Commonest is sometimes used instead of more common in front of a noun.
Job sharing has become more common.
The disease is most common in adults over 40.
Stress is one of the commonest causes of insomnia.
Be Careful!
Don’t use a that-clause after common. Don’t say, for example, ‘It is quite common that motorists fall asleep while driving‘. You say ‘It is quite common for motorists to fall asleep while driving’.
It is common for a child to become deaf after even a moderate ear infection.
Collins COBUILD English Usage © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 2004, 2011, 2012
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun | 1. | common — a piece of open land for recreational use in an urban area; «they went for a walk in the park»
commons, green, park amusement park, funfair, pleasure ground — a commercially operated park with stalls and shows for amusement parcel of land, piece of ground, piece of land, tract, parcel — an extended area of land populated area, urban area — a geographical area constituting a city or town village green — a village park consisting of a plot of grassy land |
Adj. | 1. | common — belonging to or participated in by a community as a whole; public; «for the common good»; «common lands are set aside for use by all members of a community»
joint — united or combined; «a joint session of Congress»; «joint owners» individual, single — being or characteristic of a single thing or person; «individual drops of rain»; «please mark the individual pages»; «they went their individual ways» |
2. | common — having no special distinction or quality; widely known or commonly encountered; average or ordinary or usual; «the common man»; «a common sailor»; «the common cold»; «a common nuisance»; «followed common procedure»; «it is common knowledge that she lives alone»; «the common housefly»; «a common brand of soap»
usual — occurring or encountered or experienced or observed frequently or in accordance with regular practice or procedure; «grew the usual vegetables»; «the usual summer heat»; «came at the usual time»; «the child’s usual bedtime» ordinary — not exceptional in any way especially in quality or ability or size or degree; «ordinary everyday objects»; «ordinary decency»; «an ordinary day»; «an ordinary wine» uncommon — not common or ordinarily encountered; unusually great in amount or remarkable in character or kind; «uncommon birds»; «frost and floods are uncommon during these months»; «doing an uncommon amount of business»; «an uncommon liking for money»; «he owed his greatest debt to his mother’s uncommon character and ability» |
|
3. | common — common to or shared by two or more parties; «a common friend»; «the mutual interests of management and labor»
mutual shared — have in common; held or experienced in common; «two shared valence electrons forming a bond between adjacent nuclei»; «a shared interest in philately» |
|
4. | common — commonly encountered; «a common (or familiar) complaint»; «the usual greeting»
usual familiar — within normal everyday experience; common and ordinary; not strange; «familiar ordinary objects found in every home»; «a familiar everyday scene»; «a familiar excuse»; «a day like any other filled with familiar duties and experiences» |
|
5. | common — being or characteristic of or appropriate to everyday language; «common parlance»; «a vernacular term»; «vernacular speakers»; «the vulgar tongue of the masses»; «the technical and vulgar names for an animal species»
vernacular, vulgar informal — used of spoken and written language |
|
6. | plebeian, unwashed, vulgar lowborn — of humble birth or origins; «a topsy-turvy society of lowborn rich and blue-blooded poor» |
|
7. | common — of low or inferior quality or value; «of what coarse metal ye are molded»- Shakespeare; «produced…the common cloths used by the poorer population»
coarse inferior — of low or inferior quality |
|
8. | rough-cut, uncouth, vulgar, coarse unrefined — (used of persons and their behavior) not refined; uncouth; «how can a refined girl be drawn to such an unrefined man?» |
|
9. | common — to be expected; standard; «common decency»
ordinary — not exceptional in any way especially in quality or ability or size or degree; «ordinary everyday objects»; «ordinary decency»; «an ordinary day»; «an ordinary wine» |
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
common
adjective
1. usual, standard, daily, regular, ordinary, familiar, plain, conventional, routine, frequent, everyday, customary, commonplace, vanilla (slang), habitual, run-of-the-mill, humdrum, stock, workaday, bog-standard (Brit. & Irish slang), a dime a dozen Earthquakes are fairly common in this part of the world.
usual strange, rare, unusual, outstanding, unknown, abnormal, scarce, uncommon, infrequent
5. vulgar, low, inferior, coarse, plebeian She might be a little common at times, but she was certainly not boring.
vulgar cultured, sensitive, distinguished, gentle, sophisticated, noble, refined
Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002
common
adjective
1. Belonging to, shared by, or applicable to all alike:
2. Belonging or relating to the whole:
3. Occurring quite often:
5. Lacking high station or birth:
6. Being of no special quality or type:
average, commonplace, cut-and-dried, formulaic, garden, garden-variety, indifferent, mediocre, ordinary, plain, routine, run-of-the-mill, standard, stock, undistinguished, unexceptional, unremarkable.
7. Of moderately good quality but less than excellent:
acceptable, adequate, all right, average, decent, fair, fairish, goodish, moderate, passable, respectable, satisfactory, sufficient, tolerable.
8. Of low or lower quality:
9. Known widely and unfavorably:
noun
1. The common people.Used in plural:
commonality, commonalty, commoner (used in plural), crowd, hoi polloi, mass (used in plural), mob, pleb (used in plural), plebeian (used in plural), populace, public, ruck, third estate.
2. A tract of cultivated land belonging to and used by a community:
The American Heritage® Roget’s Thesaurus. Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Translations
أرْض عامَّه ، أرْض مَشاعإسْم عامخَشِن، فَظ، لِعامّة النّاسشَائِعشائِع
обикновенобщ
comúcomuna
běžnýspolečnýobyčejnýprostýsprostý
fællesfællesarealfælleskønfællesnavnjævn
yleinentavallinenyhteinen
čest
közlegelõköznévordenáré
algenguralmennings-almenninguróbreyttur; alòÿîanruddalegur, ókurteis
普通の
흔한
banalusbe¹drabendrasis kambarysbendrinisBendroji rinka
izplatītskopējskopīgslaukums sabiedriskiem pasākumiemparasts
obecný pozemok
običajenpogostprostaškiskupen
vanligallmängemensam
ที่เกิดขึ้นทุกวัน
phổ biếnthông thườngthườngbình thườngchung
common
[ˈkɒmən]
B. N
2. (Brit) (Pol) the Commons → (la Cámera de) los Comunes
see also House A3
Collins Spanish Dictionary — Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005
common
[ˈkɒmən]
adj
(in common) [cause] → commun(e)
it’s common knowledge that … → il est bien connu que …, il est bien notoire que …
for the common good → pour le bien de tous, dans l’intérêt général
Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
common
adj (+er)
(= frequently seen or heard etc) → häufig; word also → weitverbreitet, weit verbreitet, geläufig; experience also → allgemein; animal, bird → häufig pred, → häufig anzutreffend attr; belief, custom, animal, bird → (weit)verbreitet, weit verbreitet; (= customary, usual) → normal; it’s quite a common sight → das sieht man ziemlich häufig; it’s common for visitors to feel ill here → Besucher fühlen sich hier häufig krank; nowadays it’s quite common for the man to do the housework → es ist heutzutage ganz normal, dass der Mann die Hausarbeit macht
n
(= land) → Anger m, → Gemeindewiese f
nothing out of the common → nichts Besonderes
to have something in common (with somebody/something) → etw (mit jdm/etw) gemein haben; to have a lot/nothing in common → viel/nichts miteinander gemein haben, viele/keine Gemeinsamkeiten haben; we do at least have that in common → wenigstens das haben wir gemein; in common with many other people/towns/countries → (ebenso or genauso) wie viele andere (Leute)/Städte/Länder …; I, in common with … → ich, ebenso wie …
common
:
Common Entrance (Examination)
common
:
common
:
common
:
common
:
common stock
n (US St Ex) → Stammaktien pl
Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007
common
[ˈkɒmən]
1. adj
b. (pej) (vulgar) → volgare, grossolano/a
2. n
b. we have a lot in common → abbiamo molto in comune
Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995
common
(ˈkomən) adjective
1. seen or happening often; quite normal or usual. a common occurrence; These birds are not so common nowadays.
2. belonging equally to, or shared by, more than one. This knowledge is common to all of us; We share a common language.
3. publicly owned. common property.
4. coarse or impolite. She uses some very common expressions.
5. of ordinary, not high, social rank. the common people.
6. of a noun, not beginning with a capital letter (except at the beginning of a sentence). The house is empty.
noun
(a piece of) public land for everyone to use, with few or no buildings. the village common.
ˈcommoner noun
a person who is not of high rank. The royal princess married a commoner.
common knowledge
something known to everyone or to most people. Surely you know that already – it’s common knowledge.
common ˈlaw noun
a system of unwritten laws based on old customs and on judges’ earlier decisions.
ˈcommon-law adjective
referring to a relationship between two people who are not officially married, but have the same rights as husband and wife. a common-law marriage; a common-law wife/husband.
ˈcommonplace adjective
very ordinary and uninteresting. commonplace remarks.
ˈcommon-room noun
in a college, school etc a sitting-room for the use of a group.
common sense
practical good sense. If he has any common sense he’ll change jobs.
the Common Market
(formerly) an association of certain European countries to establish free trade (without duty, tariffs etc) among them, now replaced by the European Union.
the (House of) Commons
the lower house of the British parliament.
in common
(of interests, attitudes, characteristics etc) shared or alike. They have nothing in common – I don’t know why they’re getting married.
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary © 2006-2013 K Dictionaries Ltd.
common
→ شَائِع běžný fælles weitverbreitet συνήθης común yleinen commun čest comune 普通の 흔한 veelvoorkomend vanlig wspólny comum общий vanlig ที่เกิดขึ้นทุกวัน yaygın phổ biến 常见的
Multilingual Translator © HarperCollins Publishers 2009
common
a. común, corriente;
___ name → nombre ___;
___ place → lugar ___;
___ sense → sentido ___.
English-Spanish Medical Dictionary © Farlex 2012
common
adj común; a common problem..un problema común; — sense sentido común
English-Spanish/Spanish-English Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Definitions For Commonest
verb
- A public area or park usually in the center of a town or city
- A place where meals are served at a school, college, etc.
English International (SOWPODS)
YES
Points in Different Games
Scrabble
Words with Friends
The word Commonest is worth 15 points in Scrabble and 19 points in Words with Friends
Examples of Commonest in a Sentence
- They have a common ancestor.
- The people on the island have a sense of common identity.
- It is common practice for one town’s fire department to help another town when there is a big fire.
- The campus has several dining commons.
Antonyms for Commonest
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#1
Hi,
pls would you say
«the most common mistake of all» or «the commonest mistake of all»?
Is one of the possibilities comletely incorrect?
Thank you
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#2
*completely
I have never heard «commonest», «most common» is used more.
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#3
The most common..is correct
Rocstar
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#4
Hi,
pls would you say«the most common mistake of all» or «the commonest mistake of all»?
Is one of the possibilities comletely incorrect?
Thank you
I think that they’re both correct although I absolutely LOATHE «commonest» and would never use it.
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#6
Well, «commonest» is listed HERE, so I assume that both are correct.
EDIT: 2,710,000 matches on google for «commonest»
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#7
I think it depends on your meaning.
If common = plentiful (the opposite of rare), then without doubt, most common is preferable.
However, sometimes, common is used to mean «uncultured, dirty, lower-class». It’s maybe not very polite, but some people do use it. In this case, it is useful to use commonest, to make it clear that you are not talking about the frequency of occurrence.
That’s a distinction that’s been used by writers I’ve worked with. It might just be a British thing, because we have a greater concept of social class than other English-speaking countries.
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#8
Commonest is poor grammar. Widely used, but makes me shudder.
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#9
Sorry to resurrect an ancient thread, but «commoner, commonest» is an irregular comparative/superlative form. To my mind, using more and most common demonstrates ignorance of the irregular form. However, Merriam Webster doesn’t list the forms, implying that «common» is considered regular. Perhaps this is one of the manifold BE/AE stylistic differences?
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#10
I didn’t know there was any stigma attached to «commonest», so I think Twoflower may be right about a BE/AE stylistic difference.
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#11
I think that they’re both correct although I absolutely LOATHE «commonest» and would never use it.
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I presume you think that only the commonest people would actually say «commonest» ?
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#12
Isn’t the general rule of comparative and superlative : -er and -est for adjectives of one or two syllables, more and most for those longer?
Which would make commonest correct, if a little inelegant.
I can hear in my head the narrative on TV nature programmes «One of the commonest forms of insect life on the planet is…………»
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#13
But we add ‘-er’ and ‘-est’ only with two syllable adjectives that end in ‘-y’ like ‘happy’, ‘lucky’, ‘lazy’, etc. I’ve been also taught that we could use ‘more’ and ‘most’ with them when the situation is informal, e.g. writing a letter to a friend, although some grammarians and teachers don’t consider it correct. However, I have seen such examples in my textbook, which is written by native speakers. The Oxford Dictionary gives the comparative and superlative forms as ‘commoner’ and ‘commonest’.
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#14
No, there are a number of two-syllable patterns that can be inflected, most commonly -le/-el as in subtler, simplest, cruellest; beyond that, we get into individual words rather than patterns, as it can be hard to think of multiple examples for each type, but certainly yellower, quieter, bitterest, all sound fairly natural. The thing about the -y adjectives is that we usually inflect them, whereas with the other disyllables that allow it (and not all do, most prominently those in -ing, -ish), it’s an alternative choice.
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#15
I didn’t know there was any stigma attached to «commonest», so I think Twoflower may be right about a BE/AE stylistic difference.
I have no objections whatsoever to commoner/commonest: I happily use them whether the meaning is ‘occurring frequently’ or ‘lacking in social polish’. To suggest that they’re ‘mistakes’ in British English is … well, mistaken.
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#16
Oxford Dictionary lists «commoner» and «commonest» as the comparative and superlative forms of «common». The Oxford Dictionary cannot be wrong.
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#17
There is a usage note in the Collins Cobuild which makes a distinction between the available attributive and predicative forms:
The comparative and superlative forms of common are usually more common and most common. Commonest is sometimes used instead of most common in front of a noun.
Job sharing has become more common.
The disease is most common in adults over 40.
Stress is one of the commonest causes of insomnia.
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#18
Still baffled.
I’d happily say/write:
Job-sharing is commoner today than it was 20 years ago.
The disease is commonest in adults over 40.
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#19
Still baffled.
I’d happily say/write:
Job-sharing is commoner today than it was 20 years ago.
The disease is commonest in adults over 40.
Yuck.
Job sharing is commoner than Miss Brahms on Keeping Up Appearances (showing a lack of taste and refinement). What part of London is it from?
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#20
Still baffled.
I’d happily say/write:
Job-sharing is commoner today than it was 20 years ago.
The disease is commonest in adults over 40.
I’m baffled too.
As Edison correctly points out (post #16) Oxford Dictionaries Online lists the forms commoner, commonest. So it seems odd to me that people are apparently trying to claim there’s something wrong with them.
Or maybe it’s just an AE/BE thing.
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#21
Mystified by the Collins Cobuild entry quoted by Nat, the more so since it appears to be descriptive, not prescriptive; happy with Ewie’s sample sentences.
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#22
Unlike Oxford Online, the editors of the OED clearly don’t think there is any need to list a standard form of the superlative. They use «commonest» themselves in 46 of their definitions and 21 of their etymologies. There’s also 424 quotations which use «commonest». «Most common» features in 99 definitions and 35 etymologies, and appears in 836 quotations.
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#23
I think it depends on your meaning.
If common = plentiful (the opposite of rare), then without doubt, most common is preferable.
However, sometimes, common is used to mean «uncultured, dirty, lower-class». It’s maybe not very polite, but some people do use it. In this case, it is useful to use commonest, to make it clear that you are not talking about the frequency of occurrence.
That’s a distinction that’s been used by writers I’ve worked with. It might just be a British thing, because we have a greater concept of social class than other English-speaking countries.
I thought «commoner» means from a lower social class, when referred to as a noun, now I am confused about the difference between saying » a commoner » and » a commonest «. Would you please explain that?
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#24
You are asking about the noun «commoner», which does not mean «from a lower social class», it means a person who is not a member of the aristocracy or royalty. This thread is about the comparative and superlative forms of the adjective «common». «A commonest» has no meaning.
Last edited: Nov 15, 2015
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#25
The AHD agrees with the OED: commoner and commonest are standard as the comparative and superlative, respectively, of the adjective common.
That doesn’t mean one has to like them or use them. I don’t.