Word.ws English Dictionary

oft

/ɔft/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

cot caught merger/ɑft/

oft adverb: often; frequently; not rarely.

Adverb

oft (comparative ofter, superlative oftest)

  1. (dialectal, in-compounds, poetic) often; frequently; not rarely
    • An oft-told tale
    • What I can do, can do no hurt to try:
      Since you ſet up your reſt 'gainſt remedy:
      He that of greateſt works is finiſher,
      Oft does them by the weakeſt miniſter;
      So holy writ in babes hath judgment ſhown,
      When judges have been babes.c. 1604–1605 (date written), William Shakespeare, “All’s Well, that Ends Well”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

Proper noun capitalized: OFT

OFT

  1. (UK, abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of Office of Fair Trading.

Noun capitalized: OFT

OFT (plural OFTs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of orbital flight test.
    Synonyms:
    OTF

Examples of oft in a sentence

  • The oft misused word didn't mean what he thought it meant, but everyone else misunderstood it too.
  • Micro$oft shot themselves in the foot when they tried to take control of everybody's computer.
  • He maketh merry with us all oft and anon, and 'twill be to his own undoing.

All 15 example sentences with oft

Synonyms of oft

Forms of oft

Adverb
comparativeofter
superlativeoftest
Noun
pluralOFTs

Origin of oft

From Middle English oft (also ofte, often > Modern English often), from Old English oft (“often”), from Proto-West Germanic *oftu, *oftō, from Proto-Germanic *uftō (“often”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian oafte (“oft, often”), West Frisian oft, ofte (“oft, often”), Dutch oft (“oft, often”), German oft (“oft, often”). More at often.

Words formed from oft

Phrases with oft

Words that rhyme with oft

Questions about oft

What does oft mean?
Oft means often; frequently; not rarely.
What part of speech is oft?
Oft can be an adverb, a proper noun or a noun.
How do you pronounce oft?
Oft is pronounced /ɔft/ (US).

Words near oft in the dictionary

  1. OFSI
  2. OFSP
  3. ofspring
  4. OFSPs
  5. Ofsted
  6. oft
  7. oft mentioned
  8. oft times
  9. oft used
  10. oft-mentioned
  11. oft-repeated

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oft (page history and authors); OFT (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-oft.ogg.

Cite this entry: “oft.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oft. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.