Most Frequent Word in Strings List Last Updated : 23 Jul, 2025 Comments Improve Suggest changes 1 Likes Like Report We are given a list of strings we need to find the most frequent words from that particular list. For example, w = ["apple", "banana", "apple", "orange", "banana", "apple"] we need to find most frequent words in list which is 'apple' in this case.Using Counter from collectionsCounter class from the collections module counts occurrences of words in list. Using Counter.most_common(1) we can retrieve most frequent word along with its count. Python from collections import Counter # Define a list of words w = ["apple", "banana", "apple", "orange", "banana", "apple"] # Use Counter to count occurrences of each word and get the most common word f = Counter(w).most_common(1)[0][0] print(f) Outputapple Explanation:Counter(w) creates a dictionary-like object that counts occurrences of each word, and most_common(1) returns a list with most frequent word and its count.[0][0] extracts the most frequent word from tuple.Using a DictionaryWe can use a dictionary to manually count word occurrences by iterating through list and updating count for each word with highest count is then identified by checking maximum value in dictionary. Python w = ["apple", "banana", "apple", "orange", "banana", "apple"] f = {} for word in w: f[word] = f.get(word, 0) + 1 # Increment count for each word # Find the word with the highest frequency m = max(f, key=f.get) print(m) Outputapple Explanation:Dictionary f stores word counts using f.get(word, 0) + 1 to update occurrences for each word in list.max(f, key=f.get) finds the word with the highest frequency by selecting key with maximum count.Using collections.defaultdictdefaultdict from the collections module simplifies counting by initializing missing keys with a default value. We can use it to store word frequencies and find most frequent word using max(). Python from collections import defaultdict w = ["apple", "banana", "apple", "orange", "banana", "apple"] freq = defaultdict(int) for word in w: freq[word] += 1 f = max(freq, key=freq.get) print(f) Outputapple Explanation:defaultdict(int) automatically initializes missing keys with a default value of 0 making it easier to count word occurrences without checking for key existence.max(freq, key=freq.get) finds word with highest count by selecting key with maximum value. Create Quiz Comment M manjeet_04 Follow 1 Improve M manjeet_04 Follow 1 Improve Article Tags : Python Python Programs Python list-programs Python string-programs Explore Python FundamentalsPython Introduction 2 min read Input and Output in Python 4 min read Python Variables 4 min read Python Operators 4 min read Python Keywords 2 min read Python Data Types 8 min read Conditional Statements in Python 3 min read Loops in Python - For, While and Nested Loops 5 min read Python Functions 5 min read Recursion in Python 4 min read Python Lambda Functions 5 min read Python Data StructuresPython String 5 min read Python Lists 4 min read Python Tuples 4 min read Python Dictionary 3 min read Python Sets 6 min read Python Arrays 7 min read List Comprehension in Python 4 min read Advanced PythonPython OOP Concepts 11 min read Python Exception Handling 5 min read File Handling in Python 4 min read Python Database Tutorial 4 min read Python MongoDB Tutorial 3 min read Python MySQL 9 min read Python Packages 10 min read Python Modules 3 min read Python DSA Libraries 15 min read List of Python GUI Library and Packages 3 min read Data Science with PythonNumPy Tutorial - Python Library 3 min read Pandas Tutorial 4 min read Matplotlib Tutorial 5 min read Python Seaborn Tutorial 3 min read StatsModel Library - Tutorial 3 min read Learning Model Building in Scikit-learn 6 min read TensorFlow Tutorial 2 min read PyTorch Tutorial 6 min read Web Development with PythonFlask Tutorial 8 min read Django Tutorial | Learn Django Framework 7 min read Django ORM - Inserting, Updating & Deleting Data 4 min read Templating With Jinja2 in Flask 6 min read Django Templates 5 min read Build a REST API using Flask - Python 3 min read Building a Simple API with Django REST Framework 3 min read Python PracticePython Quiz 1 min read Python Coding Practice 1 min read Python Interview Questions and Answers 15+ min read Like