Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - often

Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English. Note: 'Often' is usually used before the verb, but it may be used after the verb when it has a word like ‘less’ or ‘more’ before it, or when the clause is negative. 1. If something often happens, it happens many times or much of the time. They often spent Christmas at Prescott Hill... It was often hard to work and do the course at the same time... That doesn’t happen very often. ? rarely ADV: ADV before v, ADV with cl/group 2. You use how often to ask questions about frequency. You also use often in reported clauses and other statements to give information about the frequency of something. How often do you brush your teeth?... Unemployed Queenslanders were victims of personal crime twice as often as employed people. ADV: how ADV, as ADV as n/cl 3. If something happens every so often, it happens regularly, but with fairly long intervals between each occasion. She’s going to come back every so often... Every so often he would turn and look at her. = occasionally PHRASE: PHR with cl 4. If you say that something happens as often as not, or more often than not, you mean that it happens fairly frequently, and that this can be considered as typical of the kind of situation you are talking about. Yet, as often as not, they find themselves the target of persecution rather than praise... PHRASE: PHR with cl