Etymograph

English

frequent

Frequent comes from Latin frequens ‘crowded, crammed, frequent, repeated, etc’, and perhaps goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰrekʷ- ‘to cram together’.

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰrekʷ-1‘to cram together’uncertain
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*frekʷents2reconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfrequens1‘crowded, crammed, frequent, repeated, etc’
  4. Old Frenchc. 842–1400frequent1
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1603frequent1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English frequent
  2. 2 Wiktionary, Latin frequens
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1603, Ben[jamin] Jonson: “'Tis Caesar's will to have a frequent senate.”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰrekʷ-Wiktionary, English frequent‘to cram together’uncertain
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*frekʷentsWiktionary, Latin frequensreconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfrequensWiktionary, English frequent‘crowded, crammed, frequent, repeated, etc’
  4. Old Frenchc. 842–1400frequentWiktionary, English frequent
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1603frequentWiktionary, English frequent. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1603, Ben[jamin] Jonson: “'Tis Caesar's will to have a frequent senate.”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *bʰrekʷ- ‘to cram together’

farce, 4 more

Another origin of frequent

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*bʰrekʷ-‘to condense’uncertain
  2. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*frekʷentsreconstructed
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfrequens‘frequent, crowded’
  4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfrequentare‘to fill, crowd, visit often, do or use often, etc’
  5. Old Frenchc. 842–1400frequenter‘to frequent’
  6. Englishtodayfrequent

Today it means

adj Done or occurring often; common.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “frequent”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin frequens. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *bʰrekʷ- / frequent

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