Word Frequency Counter
Count how often every word appears in a text and rank the most frequent words in a table with counts and shares.
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What this tool does
Count how often every word appears in a text and rank the most frequent words in a table with counts and shares. Counting is case-insensitive ('The' and 'the' are one word) and punctuation is stripped, while apostrophes inside words are kept (don't counts as one word). Hyphenated words count as two words. Ties are ordered alphabetically so results are reproducible.
How to use the Word Frequency Counter
- Enter or select text.
- Enter or select show top words.
- Read the calculated result; change any measurement to compare alternatives.
Formula
Text is tokenised into words (letters, digits and internal apostrophes), lowercased, and counted in a frequency map. Words are ranked by count descending, then alphabetically for stable ordering, and each share is count ÷ total words × 100.
- text
- Text
- top
- Show top words
Counting is case-insensitive ('The' and 'the' are one word) and punctuation is stripped, while apostrophes inside words are kept (don't counts as one word). Hyphenated words count as two words. Ties are ordered alphabetically so results are reproducible.
Worked example
For word frequency counter, the following measurements illustrate the exact method: Text: the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The dog barked, and the fox ran. The quick fox was too quick for the dog.; Show top words: 10.
Inputs
- Textthe quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The dog barked, and the fox ran. The quick fox was too quick for the dog.
- Show top words10
Result
- Most frequent wordthe (6)
- Total words25
- Unique words14
- Vocabulary richness (unique ÷ total)0.56
Results explained
- Most frequent word
- Most frequent word from the formula above. Counting is case-insensitive ('The' and 'the' are one word) and punctuation is stripped, while apostrophes inside words are kept (don't counts as one word). Hyphenated words count as two words. Ties are ordered alphabetically so results are reproducible.
- Total words
- Total words from the formula above. Counting is case-insensitive ('The' and 'the' are one word) and punctuation is stripped, while apostrophes inside words are kept (don't counts as one word). Hyphenated words count as two words. Ties are ordered alphabetically so results are reproducible.
- Unique words
- Unique words from the formula above. Counting is case-insensitive ('The' and 'the' are one word) and punctuation is stripped, while apostrophes inside words are kept (don't counts as one word). Hyphenated words count as two words. Ties are ordered alphabetically so results are reproducible.
- Vocabulary richness (unique ÷ total)
- Vocabulary richness (unique ÷ total) from the formula above. Counting is case-insensitive ('The' and 'the' are one word) and punctuation is stripped, while apostrophes inside words are kept (don't counts as one word). Hyphenated words count as two words. Ties are ordered alphabetically so results are reproducible.
Frequently asked questions
Paste your text and the tool counts every distinct word, then ranks them in the table by how often they occur, with each word's share of the total. Set how many top words to show with the top-words field.
Frequency analysis is case-insensitive, because capitalisation usually just marks the start of a sentence, not a different word. Lowercasing everything first gives the true repetition counts writers and SEO analysts need.
Unique words divided by total words. A value near 1 means almost every word is used once; lower values mean heavier repetition. Short texts score artificially high, so compare texts of similar length.
The top words should match your topic — if an unintended word outranks your subject words, the draft may be drifting or over-stuffed. Editors also scan the table for overused filler words and accidental repetitions before publishing.
Yes. Counting runs in your browser; the text you analyse is never uploaded or stored — safe for unpublished drafts and client copy.