wordcount

Wordcount is a numeric measure of the total number of words in a given text. It is commonly used to gauge document length, set writing goals, and enforce submission requirements. It is distinct from character count, which measures individual letters and symbols, and from token counts used in natural language processing, which may treat punctuation and multiword expressions differently.

How it is computed can vary. Many simple counts split text on whitespace and some punctuation, counting each resulting token as a word. More robust methods apply language-aware tokenization to treat contractions as single words, handle hyphenated compounds, and decide whether numbers count as words. Edge cases include titles, footnotes, and quoted material. Some languages do not use spaces to separate words, requiring language-specific rules to determine word boundaries.

Tools and usage: Word processors and document editors typically provide a word count feature. Scripting and programming languages offer libraries and functions for word counting, often using regular expressions or tokenization pipelines. In publishing, word count stages influence editing, formatting, and pricing decisions.

Limitations: Word count is a rough metric of length and content density; it does not measure readability, style, or information quality. Different tools may yield different counts for the same text, especially in multilingual documents, and certain content such as code blocks or lists may be treated inconsistently depending on the method used.