How to Find Overused Words in Your Writing (Word Frequency)

The short answer

To find overused words, paste your text into the Word Frequency Counter and click Analyze Frequency. It lists your 25 most-used words with a count and a percentage, after removing very common words such as "the", "and" and "is". Any content word near the top that is not your main topic, such as "really", "very" or "just", is a candidate for cutting or replacing.

Why repeated words are hard to see

When you write, you read for meaning, so repetition slips past. Editors call these "crutch words": fillers like "really", "actually", "just", "basically" and "very", or a favourite adjective that turns up in every paragraph. A frequency count shows them as numbers, which is much harder to ignore than a vague feeling that the text "sounds samey".

How to run a word frequency check

Open the Word Frequency Counter.

Paste your text. The word count of what you pasted appears under the box.

Click Analyze Frequency.

Read the ranked list: each row shows the word, how many times it appears, and its share of the counted words as a percentage.

What the tool counts and ignores

Knowing the rules helps you read the results correctly:

• Only words of three or more letters are counted. Short words like "go", "up" or "AI" do not appear.
• Common function words are removed. About 50 words such as "the", "a", "and", "is", "was", "you", "they", "this" and "that" are excluded, so the list shows meaningful words.
• Case is ignored. "Really" and "really" are counted together.
• Only the letters a to z are read. Numbers are skipped, and words in Hindi or other scripts, or words with accented letters, are not counted correctly. Use it for English text.
• Contractions are cut at the apostrophe. "don't" is counted as "don".
• Percentages are a share of the counted words, not of the whole text. Because stop words and short words are removed first, the percentages are higher than a simple "count ÷ total words".
• Words with the same count appear in the order they first appear in your text.

A worked example

Here is a 50-word product blurb:

"Our new app is really simple. It is really fast, and really easy to set up. Setup takes two minutes, and the app syncs your notes across devices. We think you will find the app really useful, and we really hope you try it. Don't wait: the app is free."

The tool counts 32 words after removing stop words and short words. The top results are:

Word	Count	Share of counted words
really	5	15.6%
app	4	12.5%
our	1	3.1%
new	1	3.1%

"App" is the subject, so four uses in a short blurb is understandable, though one could become "it". "Really" appears five times and adds nothing. A revised version might read: "Our new app is simple, fast and takes two minutes to set up. It syncs your notes across devices. Try it free today."

Reading the results: what counts as "overused"?

There is no fixed percentage that makes a word overused. Use these practical checks instead:

• Is it the topic? Your main subject (a product name, "PDF", "loan") will naturally be near the top. That is fine as long as sentences still read naturally.
• Is it a filler? Words like "really", "very", "just", "actually", "simply" and "basically" usually can be deleted with no loss of meaning.
• Is it a repeated describer? The same adjective or verb several times ("amazing", "great", "leverage", "ensure") makes writing feel flat. Vary it or cut it.
• Is it clustered? Three uses spread over 2,000 words is fine; three uses in one paragraph stands out. After spotting a word, search for it in your editor to see where it sits.

How to fix overused words

Delete fillers first. Remove "really", "very" and "just" and reread the sentence. Most are stronger without them.

Use a pronoun. Replace a repeated noun with "it", "they" or "this" when the meaning stays clear.

Merge sentences. Repetition often comes from short sentences that each restate the subject.

Choose a more precise word. "Very fast" could be "instant"; "really useful" could say what it is useful for.

Run the check again and compare the counts.

The Word Counter is useful alongside this to keep your total length on target while you trim.

Using word frequency for SEO

Some people use word frequency as a "keyword density" checker. It can show whether your main topic is mentioned at all, and whether you have repeated a phrase so often that it reads unnaturally. Two cautions:

• The tool counts single words, not phrases. "Compress PDF" appears as separate counts for "compress" and "pdf".
• Repeating a keyword to hit a target percentage tends to make writing worse. Search engines and readers both respond better to clear, specific text that answers the question. Use the count to spot excessive repetition, not to chase a number.

Other repetition checks

• Repeated sentences or lines: if a list or document has copy-paste duplicates, see how to remove duplicate lines from a list.
• Speech scripts: repetition is more noticeable when spoken aloud. The guide to how many words is a 5-minute speech helps with length.
• Comparing drafts: after editing, compare old and new versions in the Text Diff Checker to see exactly what you changed.