Frequent

How to spell frequent

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce frequent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does frequent mean?

1. adjectiveHappening or occurring at short intervals; recurring often.
2. verbTo visit a place often or habitually.

Frequent in a sentence

• adjective

  The airline rewards its most frequent travellers with extra benefits.

• verb

  The journalists tend to frequent the cafe near the courthouse.

• adjective

  Frequent rain showers delayed the building work for weeks.

• verb

  Investors who frequent that auction house know its quirks well.

Where does frequent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin frequens, which described a place that was crowded or packed full of people, and by extension something that happened again and again. The root carried the sense of being densely thronged, so a frequens forum was one bustling with a steady stream of visitors. English borrowed it in the fifteenth century, at first meaning 'crowded' or 'ample', before settling on the modern idea of something happening at short intervals. The same Latin source gave us 'frequency', the measure of how often something recurs. The spelling keeps the Latin -quent ending, which is the part most likely to trip a writer who expects a simpler -kwent.

How the word is built

• frequent- (from Latin frequens: crowded, repeated)
• -ent (adjectival ending)