Definition of "often"

☞ This word [wrap] is often pronounced wrop, rhyming with top, even by ſpeakers much above the vulgar.

1791, John Walker, A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary […] ‎, London: Sold by G. G. J. and J. Robinſon, Paternoſter Row; and T. Cadell, in the Strand, page 557

How often is the comfort of a whole family abridged by some trifling circumstance, that ought not to have made a visible impression!

1850, T. S. Arthur, “A Rise in the Butter Market”, in Sketches of Life and Character‎, Philadelphia: J. W. Bradley, page 59

Although frogs are able to swim well and often are found in water, they are really land animals.

1912, P. Chalmers Mitchell, “Larvæ and Metamorphoses”, in The Childhood of Animals‎, New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, page 17

According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.

2013 June 8, “Obama goes troll-hunting”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 55

[…] it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.

c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene i]

Then came the Ladies to visite him, and the Queene gaue him most gracious welcome, desiring him to be of good cheere: For heere is my Daughter (quoth she) right skilfull in the Art of Chirurgerie, that meanes to bee your often visitant.

1618, Anthony Munday (translator), The Third Booke of Amadis de Gaule by Nicolas de Herberay des Essarts (1542), London, Chapter 2, p. 18

The Shew-bread by an often remove, and renewing, was continually to stand before the Lord in his House […]

1656, John Bunyan, chapter 48, in Solomon’s Temple Spiritualiz’d‎, London: George Larkin, published 1688, page 113