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Evan Bartlett
Aug 24, 2015
Despite passing away nearly four centuries ago, William Shakespeare has left an indelible mark on the English language.
The likes of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth have seen Shakespeare regarded as the greatest writer in the English language.
While those plays are still widely read and celebrated, the Bard has arguably left a far greater legacy in all the words and phrases that he is credited with inventing, or at least first popularising through his work.
Here is a list of 117 words credited to Shakespeare (just try and having a conservation without using any of them):
- academe
- accused
- addiction
- advertising
- amazement
- arouse
- assassination
- arch-villain
- backing
- bandit
- barefaced
- beached
- bedazzle
- bedroom
- besmirch
- bet
- birthplace
- blanket
- bloodstained
- blushing
- bump
- buzzer
- caked
- cater
- champion
- cheap
- circumstantial
- cold-blooded
- compromise
- countless
- courtship
- critic
- dauntless
- dawn
- deafening
- discontent
- dishearten
- drugged
- dwindle
- elbow
- embrace
- epileptic
- equivocal
- excitement
- exposure
- eyeball
- fashionable
- fixture
- flawed
- frugal
- generous
- gloomy
- gnarled
- go-between
- gossip
- green-eyed
- grovel
- gust
- hint
- hobnob
- honey-tongued
- hurried
- impartial
- impede
- inauspicious
- invulnerable
- jaded
- label
- lacklustre
- laughable
- lonely
- lower
- luggage
- lustrous
- madcap
- majestic
- marketable
- metamorphise
- mimic
- monumental
- moonbeam
- mountaineer
- negotiate
- nimble-footed
- noiseless
- obscene
- obsequiously
- ode
- olympian
- outbreak
- panders
- pedant
- premeditated
- puking
- radiance
- rant
- remorseless
- sanctimonious
- savagery
- scuffle
- secure
- skim milk
- submerge
- summit
- swagger
- time-honoured
- torture
- tranquil
- undress
- unearthly
- unreal
- varied
- vaulting
- vulnerable
- well-bred
- worthless
- zany
Citations for where the majority of these words can be found in Shakespeare's plays can be seen here.
More: 9 of the most commonly misused words and what they really mean