The exact number of English words in not known. The large dictionaries have over half a million entries, but many of these are compound words (schoolroom, sugarbowl) or different derivatives of the same word, and a good many are obsolete words to help us read older literature. Dictionaries do not attempt to cover completely words that we can draw on; the informal vocabulary, especially slang, localism, the terms of various occupations and professions, words used only occasionally by scientists and specialists in many fields, foreign words borrowed for use in English, or many new words or new senses of words that come into use every year and that may or may not be used long enough to warrant being included. It would be conservative to say that there are over a millon English words that any of us might meet in our listening and reading and that we may draw on in our speaking and listening.
Professor Seashore concluded that first-graders enter school with at least 24 000 wor
A. more than half a million
B. at least 24 000
C. at least 80 000
D. more than a million
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