Vocabulary Test
A word family vocabulary test

How many words do you really know?

A research-based test that estimates your English vocabulary size in word families — not just words you recognize.

Pick your test

However you start, you’ll walk away knowing something you didn’t before — most people are surprised by their score, in a good way.

Start here

Speed Round

2 minutes, one word at a time — see your score the moment you finish.

Play now · 2 min →
Want a real number instead?

Both adapt to your level across 25 frequency bands and give you a vocabulary estimate you can track over time.

Testing a kid’s vocabulary?Kids Quiz· easy mode

Why your vocabulary size matters

Vocabulary is the single biggest lever on how well you read, write, and follow fast conversation. Knowing your number means knowing exactly what to learn next — and watching it grow is its own kind of fun.

Why it matters

Vocabulary is the ceiling on everything else

It's the single strongest predictor of how well you read, write, and follow fast conversation in English — an unfamiliar word is the most common reason comprehension breaks down, more than grammar ever is.

How we measure it

Word families, not word lists

You're tested on words drawn from all twenty-five 1,000-word frequency bands (1k–25k). The test climbs when you're doing well and backs off when you're not, then extrapolates your total from where it settles.

Why the number helps

Watch it actually go up

Once you know your band, you know exactly which 1,000 words to learn next — and retesting later turns "I think I'm improving" into a number you can watch climb.

1k–3keveryday
4k–9kadvanced
10k–25kexpert & academic

25 bands of 1,000 word families each, ranked by real-world frequency — the same list the test draws every question from.

What’s a “word family”?

A base word and all the forms built from it. If you know “read”, you very likely also know its family — so we count them together.

read
readsreadingreaderreadablereread

How it works

01

See a word

We show you one word, drawn from a frequency-ranked list of English word families — no sentence, no context clues.

02

Choose the meaning

Pick the definition that matches the word from four options.

03

Get your estimate

The test adapts as you answer, climbing toward rarer words when you're doing well, to find your level and extrapolate a total word family count.

Ready to find out?

Two minutes is all it takes to get started — you can always come back for the full estimate later.

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