Lexical Density Test Definition

The Lexical Density Test is a Readability Test designed to show how easy or difficult a text is to read. The Lexical Density Test uses the following formula:

Lexical Density = (Number of different words / Total number of words) x 100

The lexical density of a text tries to measure the proportion of the content (lexical) words over the total words. Texts with a lower density are more easily understood.

As a guide, lexically dense text has a lexical density of around 60-70% and those which are not dense have a lower lexical density measure of around 40-50%.