Most vocabulary lists are somebody’s opinion about which words matter. The ones in this section are not. Each one starts from a count of what is actually said: every word of every episode across a large catalogue of television, measured to find which words one corner of it leans on that the rest barely touches. Nobody decides in advance that a legal list or a medical list should exist; the shows say what they say, and the counting returns the list. Each word arrives with its meaning in the sense that was actually used, and a real line from a named episode so you can see it working before you try to use it. The lists are written for people who already speak English well and want the layer above everyday conversation.

Word lists built by counting

• Legal English Vocabulary: 22 Words From Popular TV Shows

  The language of a courtroom in progress, from Suits, The Lincoln Lawyer and Billions, and why a conventional legal glossary teaches you words that are almost never spoken.

• Medical English Vocabulary: 25 Words From Popular TV Shows

  The vocabulary of a hospital as it is said out loud, from The Pitt, The Good Doctor and 9-1-1, and the register gap that catches out anyone who studied the textbook instead.

• Old-Fashioned English Words: 21 Terms From Period Dramas

  The archaic register of period drama, measured across eleven shows sharing no genre, no century and no country.

More on vocabulary

• How to Build Your Vocabulary for Essay Writing

  A method that works: learn words from the texts you already read, keep the sentence along with the word, and space the reviews out.

• How Many Words?

  How large an English vocabulary actually is, and what the usual figures do and do not count.

• Some Lists of New Words Discussed

  What happens when new words enter the language, and how lists of them get assembled.

• English Legal Language Is Changing

  The long move away from the archaic phrasing of written law, and what is replacing it.