It is difficult to directly answer the question of how many words are in the Russian language . For example, in the dictionary of S.I. Ozhegov only the most common words are about 57 thousand. You can still refer to the most authoritative of the existing dictionaries - the Big Academic, which contains as many as 17 volumes. The list of words of the Russian language in this bibliographic publication totals 131,257. By the way, in 1970 this work was awarded the Lenin Prize, but, unfortunately, quickly became a rarity. Replaced by a slightly outdated, but popular Dahl dictionary.
Despite such an exact number, we cannot say that the answer to the question of how many words in Russian is given correctly. Rather, this answer will be conditional due to the large number of reservations that can easily change a given number of words. It is only worth adding to the adjectives a suffix for compiling an adverb, as there will be even more words, say, about several tens of thousands. For example, from the adjective “frank” we form the adverb “frankly”. In the dictionary, this name is not indicated by an independent unit.
It is worth adding that the dictionary contains only words from the literary language, that is, normalized, but there are still words of nationwide Russian communication! The language is rich in a huge number of nouns and adjectives that exist in rural areas, in which there is a very large variety of the most incredible dialect words. Try to guess that the “potka” in Vyatka villages means a bird! And the verb "fuck up"? You won’t immediately say that from the Vologda dialect this pearl translates as “search”. Of course, in some dictionaries such words are indicated, even specialized dialect dictionaries were written for a particular area. But not a single dictionary is able to absolutely accurately answer the question of how many words are in the Russian language.
Well, let’s leave the dialectisms alone. They are not so often found in the literary language, except in some works of art to give them a special mood and interesting narration.
Let's recall a separate group of words in the Russian language that cannot be found in any dictionary, although they are all well-known and universally used. These include, as a rule, terms, neologisms, proper names and other categories of words. For example, the abbreviation "RAS" is the Russian Academy of Sciences. You will not calculate how many times this name is used in any news or scientific reports. However, in the Large Academic Dictionary, this reduction is absent. As well as a foreign language, but such a native word "computer" is a modern symbol of an information-rich life. However, all its derivatives are also not found in any of the dictionaries.
Obviously, foreign words in the Russian language have become very used in recent decades. They wanted to release an updated Big Academic Dictionary in 20 volumes, but ... After the fourth, it was clear that this made no sense. New and new words constantly appear in our language. When chatting on the Internet, watching TV shows or reading specialized magazines - everywhere you will see your own set of words and in some places, possibly slang.
So how many words in Russian actually? Very, and again a very large number. Each of them changes in its own way, new words, their derivatives appear. Language lives its own life, subject to modern trends and the passage of time.