Number of Words in the English Language: 1,008,879

In English conversation class today (at our church) someone asked how many words are there in English. I guessed 2 million--someone else said 4,000. I was a little off, but not as far as she was. 1,008,879. I think that's the most of any language, however, some like Finnish, can invent new words just by adding pieces parts (which we sort of do too). We borrow from many languages, and English is now global. Did you know there are over 50 words for sheep in English? You probably won't ever need to know them, but in New Zealand, you might.

The Global Language Monitor » Blog Archive » Number of Words in the English Language: 1,008,879

According to another source, about 200,000 words are in common use today. An educated person has a vocabulary of about 20,000 words and uses about 2,000 during a week's conversation.