K Most Frequent Words Problem Statement

Given an array or list WORDS of 'N' non-empty words and an integer 'K', identify the 'K' most frequent words and return them sorted by their frequency, in descending order.

Note:
If two words share the same frequency, return them in lexicographical order.

Additionally, consider optimizing your solution to achieve O(N * logK) time complexity with O(N) additional space.

Input:

N K
word1 word2 word3 ... wordN

Output:

wordA wordB ... wordK

Example:

Input:
N = 6, K = 2
WORDS = ['i', 'love', 'leetcode', 'i', 'love', 'coding']
Output:
['i', 'love']
Explanation:

The word 'i' appears twice, as does 'love'. The other words appear only once. Hence, 'i' and 'love' are the most frequent.

Constraints:

  • 1 <= N <= 10^5
  • 1 <= K <= number of unique words

Time Limit: 1 sec

AnswerBot
4mo

Identify the K most frequent words in a list, sorted by frequency and lexicographical order.

  • Use a hashmap to store word frequencies

  • Use a min heap to keep track of K most frequent words

  • Sort the heap ba...read more

Help your peers!
Select
Add answer anonymously...

Amazon Software Developer interview questions & answers

A Software Developer was asked 1mo agoQ. What is HTML?
A Software Developer was asked 1mo agoQ. What is MySQL?
A Software Developer was asked 2mo agoQ. Given two strings s and t, return true if they are equal when both are typed int...read more

Popular interview questions of Software Developer

A Software Developer was asked 1mo agoQ1. What is HTML?
A Software Developer was asked 1mo agoQ2. What is MySQL?
A Software Developer was asked 2mo agoQ3. What is the system design for the cart feature in an e-commerce website?

Top HR questions asked in Amazon Software Developer

A Software Developer was asked 1mo agoQ1. Tell me about a time you had to get to the root cause of a problem
A Software Developer was asked 5mo agoQ2. What are the short-term and long-term goals for the team or organization?
A Software Developer was asked 5mo agoQ3. Why do you want to work at Amazon?
Amazon Software Developer Interview Questions
Stay ahead in your career. Get AmbitionBox app
play-icon
play-icon
qr-code
Trusted by over 1.5 Crore job seekers to find their right fit company
80 L+

Reviews

10L+

Interviews

4 Cr+

Salaries

1.5 Cr+

Users

Contribute to help millions

Made with ❤️ in India. Trademarks belong to their respective owners. All rights reserved © 2025 Info Edge (India) Ltd.

Follow Us
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
Profile Image
Hello, Guest
AmbitionBox Employee Choice Awards 2025
Winners announced!
awards-icon
Contribute to help millions!
Write a review
Write a review
Share interview
Share interview
Contribute salary
Contribute salary
Add office photos
Add office photos
Add office benefits
Add office benefits