Despite how your 8th-grade self feels about him, Shakespeare was an insanely talented wordsmith. On top of writing a plethora of plays that are still relevant today, he’s straight up invented words. Let’s check out some common words that were first recorded in the works of The Bard:
– Hamlet, Act IV, Scene V
“Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds, and wants not buzzers to infect his ear with pestilent speeches of his father’s death – Claudius
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, Scene II
Then by your side no bed-room me deny;
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie – Lysander
– Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act I, Scene I
“At Christmas I no more desire a rose than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth.” – Biron
– The Tempest, Act I, Scene II
“Go make thyself like a nymph o’ the sea: be subject to no sight but thine and mine, invisible to every eyeball else.” – Prospero
– King Henry VI, Part II, Act IV Scene I
A Roman sworder and banditto slave murder’d sweet Tully;
Brutus’ bastard hand stabb’d Julius Caesar; savage islanders
Pompey the Great; and Suffolk dies by pirates – Suffolk
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene I
“Where is our usual manager of mirth? What revels are in hand? Is there no play to ease the anguish of a torturing hour?” – King Theseus
– Othello, Act II, Scene II
“It is Othello’s pleasure, our noble and valiant general, that, upon certain tidings now arrived, importing the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet, every man put himself into triumph; some to dance, some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and revels his addiction leads him.” – Herald
– Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V, Scene II
“Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany,
Some mumble-news, some trencher-knight, some Dick,
That smiles his cheek in years and knows the trick
To make my lady laugh when she’s disposed,
Told our intents before; which once disclosed,
The ladies did change favours: and then we,
Following the signs, woo’d but the sign of she.” – Biron
– Titus Andronicus, Act II, Scene III
“Why dost not comfort me, and help me out from this unhallowed and blood-stained hole?” – Martius
– Measure for Measure. Act V, Scene I
“Your friar is now your prince: as I was then advertising and holy to your business, not changing heart with habit, I am still attorney’d at your service.” – Duke Vincentio
– Macbeth, Act III, Scene I
“And champion me to the utterance! Who’s there!” – Macbeth
– Henry V, Act IV, Prologue
“But, like a lackey, from the rise to set sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,” – King Henry V
– Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene III
“For time is like a fashionable host that slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, and with his arms outstretch’d, as he would fly, grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, and farewell goes out sighing.” – Ulysses
– Macbeth, Act II, Scene II
“No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas in incarnadine, making the green one red.” – Macbeth
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene I
“What hempen home-spuns have we swaggering here, so near the cradle of the fairy queen?” – Puck
– Macbeth, Act I, Scene VII
“If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly: if the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch with his surcease success.” – Macbeth
– As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players:They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.” – Jaques
– King Henry VI, Part III, Act II, Scene III
“Yet let us all together to our troops, and give them leave to fly that will not stay; and call them pillars that will stand to us; and, if we thrive, promise them such rewards as victors wear at the Olympian games: This may plant courage in their quailing breasts;For yet is hope of life and victory. Forslow no longer, make we hence amain.” – George
– Cymbeline, Act IV, Scene II
“Soft! What are you that fly me thus? some villain mountaineers? I have heard of such. What slave art thou?” – Cloten
– King Henry IV, Part I, Act II, Scene III
“O, I could divide myself and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skim milk with so honourable an action! Hang him!” – Hotspur
– King Lear, Act IV, Scene III
“A sovereign shame so elbows him: his own unkindness, that stripp’d her from his benediction, turn’d her to foreign casualties, gave her dear rights to his dog-hearted daughters, these things sting his mind so venomously, that burning shame detains him from Cordelia.” – Kent
– Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act III, Scene I
“A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;
A domineering pedant o’er the boy;” – Biron
– King Henry IV, Part I, Act V, Scene IV
“This is the strangest fellow, brother John. Come, bring your luggage nobly on your back: For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have.” – Prince Henry
– King Henry VI, Part II, Act II, Scene I
“Alas, master, I am not able to stand alone: You go about to torture me in vain” – Simpcox
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