How many words are there?

Nobody can say for sure how many words there are in the English language. Nobody ever will.

First of all, it depends a lot on how picky you are. Do you count all forms of words such as: bat, bats, batted, batting, batty, batter? Do you count proper names and scientific terms? Do you count obsolete terms that haven't been used in centuries? How about word which are only used in certain geographic areas? And how about slang?

Consider this puzzler. I have a table in my kitchen. I have a different kind of table in my Word document. They are two distinct things. Do you count them as two words or just one?

For these reasons, and a few others, there will never be a definitive count.

Still, some people have tried. A conservative estimate is about 3 to 3.5 million words. I have seen estimates as high as 8 million.

On the other hand, we don't have a use for that many words. Nobody could memorize them all and there would never be a use for the vast majority.

The average person knows between 10,000 and 20,000 words and uses on a regualr basis between 1,000 and 2,000. It depends on their IQ and education.
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