English vocabulary by level

The six CEFR bands, in plain words

CEFR stands for the Common European Framework of Reference. It sorts language ability into six bands, from A1 for a beginner to C2 for someone with a near-native range. It was written to describe what a learner can do, not to grade words — but in practice teachers and coursebooks use it to say roughly how difficult a word is, and that is how it is used here.

• A1first words
  Names for things you see every day, and the verbs that go with them.
• A2everyday words
  Enough to describe a routine, a journey or a problem in simple terms.
• B1ordinary conversation
  Feelings, plans and reasons. The band most learners spend longest in.
• B2argument and detail
  Precision: choosing between two words that mean nearly the same thing.
• C1precise and less common
  Register, connotation and idiom. 426 entries, published as a word list.
• C2near-native range
  Rare, technical and figurative use. 28 entries so far — too few to publish as a list.

Every word on the level pages has a Save for practice button. Saved words go to Practice My Words — kept only in your own browser, like everything else here — where flashcards, a meaning quiz and spelling bring each word back just before you would forget it. The same list can become a printable worksheet.

The word lists

Five lists, 4,574 words in total. Each word carries a meaning written in plain English, a part of speech, a syllable break, a pronunciation, an example sentence and its word family.

Why there is no C2 list

The learner layer holds 28 entries at C2. That is enough for the scramble maker to build an advanced worksheet from, and not nearly enough to call a word list. Publishing a few dozen words under the heading C2 vocabulary would tell a visitor something false about the level and about this site, so it is not published. C1, with 426 entries, is now large enough and has its own list.

There is a second reason, and it is pedagogical rather than practical. A plain scramble drills one narrow skill: rebuilding a written word from a disordered signal. That is genuinely useful up to about B2. Past it, a learner already recognizes written forms fluently, and their real gaps are meaning, collocation and register — none of which rearranging letters touches. Advanced learners are better served by the definition-matched format in the maker than by a longer list here.

How to use these lists

They are built for two different readers and work slightly differently for each.

If you are learning English, start one band below where you think you are. Read the example sentence before the meaning. Use the practice scrambles at the foot of each list, then look up your own words in the unscrambler — every learner entry carries the same data as these tables, so the habit transfers.

If you are teaching, these lists are a levelling reference rather than a syllabus. Paste any selection of them into the scramble maker to get a printable sheet with an answer key, or take a ready-made set with a classroom procedure from the worksheet library. Teachers writing lesson plans against a national curriculum may also want the Thai curriculum mapping, which lines these bands up with the ministry's exit targets and vocabulary-size checkpoints.

Sources: Meanings are written for learners rather than adapted from any single dictionary, and checked against established learner dictionaries. CEFR levels are evidence-graded against the CEFR-J Wordlist v1.5 (© Tono Laboratory, TUFS), the Oxford 3000/5000 level bands and, for C1–C2, the Octanove Vocabulary Profile (CC BY-SA 4.0); each level carries one of five evidence marks (✓✓ ✓ ≠ ✓* ⚠). Pronunciations derive from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (Copyright © 1993–2015 Carnegie Mellon University), General American. Full methodology, exact counts and the change log: methodology & sources. Last checked: 24 August 2026.