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Of the nearly 18,000 written words in Shakespeare’s oeuvre, over 1,700 are seen for the first time in his works. This doesn’t necessarily mean he coined all those words — and in fact many of them most likely existed in other languages, like Latin, for a very long time before Shakespeare anglicized them.
New words are known as neologisms, and the coining of new words or adopting words from other languages and making them, in essence, your own is called neologizing. Shakespeare was a master neologist.
The word “eyeballs,” for instance, made its first appearance in the English language when Shakespeare wrote:
Then crush this herb into Lysander’s eye;
Whose liquor hath this virtuous property,
To take from thence all error with his might,
And make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight.(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii)
And the word “puking”:
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.(As You Like It, Act II, Scene vii)
The following — an astounding and by-no-means exhaustive list — are words that according to the Oxford English Dictionary Shakespeare was the first to put in print:
addiction
admirable
advertising
aerial
alligator
amazement
arch-villain
assassination
barefaced
bedroom
belongings
bloodstained
bump
buzzer
cold-blooded
coldhearted
clangor
compact
critical
controls
critic
critical
dawn
disgraceful
dishearten
distasteful
embrace
employer
employment
excitement
eyesore
farmhouse
fathomless
flawed
fortuneteller
foulmouthed
frugal
gloomy
glow
gnarled
hurry
jaded
kissing
lackluster
laughable
leaky
leapfrog
lonely
long-legged
love letter
luggage
lustrous
madcap
majestic
malignancy
manager
marketable
mimic
misgiving
misplaced
monumental
moonbeam
mortifying
motionless
multitudinous
neglect
new-fangled
nimble-footed
noiseless
numb
obscene
obsequiously
outbreak
perplex
posture
premeditated
priceless
Promethean
protester
published
puking
radiance
rant
rancorous
reclusive
reliance
remorseless
reprieve
resolve
restraint
retirement
revolting
rival
roadway
rumination
sanctimonious
satisfying
savage
scrubbed
shooting star
seamy-side
shudder
silk
stocking
zany
In addition to that, did you know that Shakespeare coined these female names: Olivia, Jessica, Miranda, and Imogen?
And people have the nerve to ask me if “Shakespeare is all that”?
2 Responses and Counting...
He was a master of words, remastering and integrating seemingly seamlessly. I hear too often that Shakespeare stole/borrowed themes and ideas…though, I think common knowledge excludes his inventive vernacular prowess or neologisms (as you say). Thank you for reminding – and Shakespeare would be attributed with inventing multitudinous…
Thank you, Liz. And thank you for dropping by.