häufigsten

Häufigsten is the superlative form of the German adjective häufig, meaning frequent or common. It is used to indicate the highest degree of frequency and can modify nouns or appear in adverbial phrases to express that something occurs most often.

In attributive use before nouns, häufigsten appears with definite articles or other determiners in the plural: die häufigsten Fehler (the most common mistakes). When there is no definite determiner, the strong ending changes the form to häufigste Fehler in the plural. The exact ending depends on gender, number, case, and article in the sentence.

As an adverb, the superlative form is usually expressed with am häufigsten, meaning "most often." For example: Er wird am häufigsten gefragt, ob er helfen kann. This construction is used to describe frequency across contexts rather than describing a specific noun.

Common usage notes include that häufig is a descriptive term for frequency, while am häufigsten is used to quantify occurrence. The term can apply to a wide range of subjects, from errors and causes to habits and patterns. In scholarly writing or statistics, häufigsten is often used to identify the most prevalent items in a dataset, such as die häufigsten Ursachen einer Krankheit or die häufigsten Fehler in einem Experiment.

Etymology traces häufigsten to häufig with the standard German superlative suffix -sten, inflecting to agree with the noun it describes. Related forms include häufig, häufiger (comparative), and am häufigsten (adverbial superlative).