frequent

Formsfrequents, frequenting, frequented

1. 1
   adjective

   Happening or done often; occurring many times and common.

   The region experiences frequent earthquakes throughout the winter months.

   Frequent software updates kept the system secure during the launch.

   Similarregular, repeated, recurrent, common

   Oppositeinfrequent, rare, occasional

   Note

   A word that began in crowds: Latin frequens meant "crowded, crammed" before it meant "repeated," and English kept the idea of many things packed close, measured in time rather than space. It sits naturally before nouns of habit and service: frequent breaks, frequent trains, a frequent visitor. Comparison usually runs more frequent, most frequent, though the inflected frequenter and frequentest also exist.

2. 2
   adjective

   Occurring at short intervals, with little time between one instance and the next.

   Patients on the new drug require frequent blood tests.

   The ferry keeps a frequent schedule, departing every fifteen minutes.

   Similarregular

   Oppositeinfrequent, occasional

   Note

   Intervals here need not be of time. When Lord Byron writes of "the frequent feudal towers" in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1816), the towers stand at short distances, one after another, across the landscape. Modern use mostly measures time, as in frequent tests or a frequent service. The stress falls on the small gap between occurrences rather than on the sheer count that the plain "often" meaning conveys.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To visit a place often or habitually.

   Artists frequent the riverside bars on summer evenings.

   Regulars who frequent the tavern know the owner by name.

   Similarhaunt, patronize, visit

   Oppositeavoid

   Note

   The verb arrived separately, from Latin frequentare, "to fill, crowd, visit often." Its sense of haunting a place is therefore old in its own right rather than a later extension of the adjective. It is transitive and takes its place directly: you frequent a restaurant, never frequent to one. It often appears with used to for a habit since dropped, as in I used to frequent that restaurant.

4. 4
   adjective

   Inclined to indulge habitually in some practice; persistent in a course of conduct.

   He was a frequent gambler, persistent in his vice despite mounting debts.

   She remained a frequent drinker, given habitually to the bottle.

   Similarhabitual, regular, inveterate

   Oppositeoccasional

   Note

   Here the adjective moves from the act to the person who keeps doing it. Jonathan Swift's A Project for the Advancement of Religion (1709) mocks men who are "loud and frequent in declaring" their loyalty. The construction is frequent in followed by an -ing verb, and it carries a hint of overdoing. Today the habit usually attaches to a noun instead: a frequent gambler, a frequent drinker.

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