Often

//ˈɒfən// adj, adv

adj, adv ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Frequent. archaic

    "[…] it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness."

Adverb
  1. 1
    Frequently; many times on different occasions.

    "I often walk to work when the weather is nice."

Adverb
  1. 1
    many times at short intervals wordnet
  2. 2
    frequently or in great quantities wordnet
  3. 3
    in many cases or instances wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
frequentlyusuallya lotoftentimesa great dealagain and again

Example

More examples

"I live near the sea, so I often get to go to the beach."

Etymology

From Middle English often, alteration (with final -n added due to analogy with Middle English selden (“seldom”)) of Middle English ofte, oft, from Old English oft (“often”), from Proto-Germanic *ufta, *uftō (“often”). Cognates Cognate with Scots affen, aften, af'en, oaffen, oaften, oftin (“often”), North Frisian aaft, oftem, oofting (“often”), Saterland Frisian oafte (“often”), German, Luxembourgish and Pennsylvania German oft (“often”), Yiddish אָפֿט (oft, “often”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk ofte (“often”), Faroese, Swedish ofta (“often”), Icelandic oft (“often”), Gothic 𐌿𐍆𐍄𐌰 (ufta, “often”).

Related phrases

as often as notdo you come here oftenevery so oftenmany a time and oftenmore often than notproverbs often come in pairsthe best laid plans of mice and men often go awrythe pitcher goes so often to the well that it is broken at lasttimes and oftenall timefrequency statementi am

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.