Other forms: frequented, frequenting, frequents
Frequent means happening many times over a period, again and again. Frequent stops on a slow train, frequent headaches, frequent messages from someone who will not let a thing drop.
It is the adjective and frequently is the adverb, which is where learners slip: the buses are frequent or the buses run frequently, never the buses run frequent. There is a verb spelt the same but stressed at the far end, fri-KWENT — to frequent a place is to go there a great deal, which is why the regulars in a bar are said to frequent it. Frequent flyer and frequent visitor are the set phrases. Frequency is the noun for how many times a thing happens, and in physics for how many times a wave repeats each second.
1adjectivefrequentHappening many times within a short period.
“There were frequent power cuts that winter.”
synonyms: repeated, recurrent, regular
2adjectivegreatDoing something a great deal.
“She is a frequent visitor to the archive.”
3verbplaceTo go to a place regularly.
“The poets who frequent that cafe have not changed in thirty years.”
Frequent came through Old French from Latin frequens, which meant crowded or crammed, packed with people. Behind that may stand a Proto-Indo-European root brekw-, to cram together. English moved the crowding out of space and into time: frequent events are moments packed close together.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰrekʷ- — to cram together
Latin
frequens — crowded, crammed, frequent, repeated, etc.
Old French
frequent
English, today
frequent
From Old French frequent, from Latin frequens (“crowded, crammed, frequent, repeated, etc.”), possibly from a Proto-Indo-European bʰrekʷ- (“to cram together”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA