souvent

Souvent is a French adverb meaning "often" or "frequently." It indicates that an action or situation occurs multiple times within a given period. In contemporary French, it is used with verbs to express repetition or habitual occurrence: Il va souvent au cinéma. Je ne mange pas souvent au restaurant. It can also modify an entire clause for emphasis: Souvent, les gens se demandent si cela vaut la peine. Typically it follows the conjugated verb in modern French, but it can be placed at the beginning of a sentence to stress frequency.

Origin and usage notes: The word comes from Old French sovent/souvent, with cognates in other Romance languages; its precise Latin origin is unclear. Common synonyms include fréquemment and régulièrement; antonyms include rarement and parfois. In negations, the usual construction is ne … pas souvent. In formal writing, fréquemment may be preferred, while souvent remains widely used in speech and general prose. The term is versatile and neutral in tone.

Examples: Il travaille souvent tard. Elle lit souvent des romans policiers. Nous ne voyageons pas souvent en été. In everyday speech, souvent appears across registers and can be intensified by intonation or sentence placement to emphasize frequency.