Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adverb Many times; frequently.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Many times; many a time; frequently; not seldom; not rarely: same as oft, and now the usual form.
  • Synonyms Often, Frequently. Where these words differ, often is the simpler and stronger, and expresses the more regular recurrence: as, I often take that path and frequently meet him on the way.
  • Frequent; repeated.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb Frequently; many times; not seldom.
  • adjective rare Frequent; common; repeated.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb Frequently, many times.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb many times at short intervals
  • adverb in many cases or instances
  • adverb frequently or in great quantities

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, alteration (probably influenced by selden, seldom) of oft, from Old English; see upo in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English oft

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Examples

Comments

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  • I have witnessed the reintroduction of the hard t in often among the educated during my lifetime. Perhaps merely because I am a curmudgeon, this grates against my nerves.

    July 28, 2007

  • Well, if you're a curmudgeon, gerwitz, then so am I. :-)

    July 29, 2007

  • Brings to mind a section in the Pirates of Penzance.

    March 13, 2008

  • I know of no other word in English which has such a wide-spread variant pronunciation of the common Americans around me. I do not pronounce the t, but many people do.

    As dgstone has alluded to -- you've got to be able to make the hilarious puns with orphan!

    October 19, 2009