A History of Words

A History of Words is a fun tool for visualizing the frequency of words and phrases in publications since 1500. Use it to compare the occurrences of different words, see trends in word usage over time, or to impress your English teacher with your amazing etymological knowledge!

To use A History of Words, simply type in a comma-separated list of words or phrases, select a language, and go! You can even select a range of years in which to search.

Languages supported include: English (American and British), Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese, and Hebrew.

Use the "Frequency" control to adjust graph smoothing by averaging more or fewer years into each data point.

A History of Words is based on Google Books Ngram Viewer.