oft
adv. freq.adv. an old-fashioned or poetic way to say 'often'. You will mostly see this in songs, poems, or very old books.
adv. a literary or archaic variant of 'often', indicating high frequency. Primarily restricted to poetic, formal, or dialectal contexts in modern usage.
The poet wrote of the oft-repeated tales of old.
In the quiet village, the elders would gather to share oft-told stories of the great flood.
Though the phrase is oft-quoted in academic circles, its original meaning has been somewhat obscured by centuries of shifting linguistic norms.
From Middle English oft (also ofte, often > Modern English often), from Old English oft (“often”), from Proto-West Germanic oftu, oftō, from Proto-Germanic *uftō (“often”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian oafte (“oft, often”), West Frisian oft, ofte (“oft, often”), Dutch oft (“oft, often”), German oft (“oft, often”). More at often.
In modern English, it is most frequently encountered as a prefix in hyphenated compound adjectives like 'oft-repeated' or 'oft-quoted'.