Aug. 6: Shakespeare not-so-trivia

When we were in Ashland a few weeks ago April read in one of the gift shop books that William Shakespeare coined many words and phrases that we use in our everyday language. I did some digging around today and here’s what I found.

In all of his work - the plays, the sonnets and the narrative poems - Shakespeare uses 17,677 words. Of those 1,700 were first used by Shakespeare. Writers often invent words, either by creating new forms of existing words or coining new words outright, because they are unable to find the exact word they require in the existing language. Shakespeare is the foremost of those. He was by far the most important individual influence on the development of the modern English that we speak today. (NoSweatShakespeare)

Shakespeare’s Words

• accommodation
  
• aerial
  
• amazement
  
• apostrophe
  
• assassination
  
• auspicious
  
• baseless
  
• bloody
  
• bump
  
• castigate
  
• changeful
  
• clangor
  
• control (noun)
  
• countless
  
• courtship
  
• critic
  
• critical
  
• dexterously
  
• dishearten
  
• dislocate
  
• dwindle
  
• eventful
  
• exposure
  
• fitful
  
• frugal
  
• generous
  
• gloomy
  
• gnarled
  
• hurry
  
• impartial
  
• inauspicious
  
• indistinguishable
  
• invulnerable
  
• lapse
  
• laughable
  
• lonely
  
• majestic
  
• misplaced
  
• monumental
  
• multitudinous
  
• obscene
  
• palmy
  
• perusal
  
• pious
  
• premeditated
  
• radiance
  
• reliance
  
• road
  
• sanctimonious
  
• seamy
  
• sportive
  
• submerge
  
• suspicious
  

Shakespeare’s Phrases

• barefaced
  
• fancy-free
  
• catch a cold
  
• disgraceful conduct
  
• elbowroom
  
• fair play
  
• green eyed monster
  
• heartsick
  
• hot-blooded
  
• housekeeping
  
• lackluster
  
• leapfrog
  
• long-haired
  
• pitched battle
  
• clothes make the man
  
• method in his madness
  
• to thine own self be true
  
• towering passion
  
• ministering angel
  
• dog will have his day
  
• frailty, thy name is woman
  
• neither a borrower nor a lender be
  
• brevity is the soul of wit
  
• mind’s eye
  
• primrose path
  
• flaming youth
  
• it smells to heaven
  
• the lady doth protest too much
  
• witching time of the night
  
• it’s Greek to me
  
• live long day
  
• breathe one’s last
  
• heart of gold
  
• give the devil his due
  
• too much of a good thing
  
• naked truth
  
• foregone conclusion
  
• break the ice
  
• strange bedfellows
  
• wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve
  
• all that glitters isn’t gold
  
• eat out of house and home
  
• be all and end all
  
• more sinned against than sinning
  
• one fell swoop
  
• the milk of human kindness
  
• the course of true love never did run smooth
  

A bit of Shakespeare’s nasty side

• You are not worth another word, else I’d call you knave.
  All’s Well that Ends Well (2.3.262)
  
• I do desire we may be better strangers.
  As You Like It (3.2.248)
  
• More of your conversation would infect my brain.
  Coriolanus (2.1.91)
  
• This sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh!
  1 Henry IV (2.4.225-6)
  
• ‘Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! you tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bowcase; you vile standing-tuck!
  1 Henry IV (2.4.227-9)
  
• There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune.
  1 Henry IV (3.3.40)
  
• I can see his pride
  Peep through each part of him.
  Henry VIII (1.1.80-1)
  
• I scorn you, scurvy companion.
  2 Henry IV (2.4.115)
  
• Away, you mouldy rogue, away!
  2 Henry IV (2.4.117)
  
• You are a tedious fool.
  Measure for Measure (2.1.113)
  
• Some report a sea-maid spawn’d him; some that he was begot between two stock-fishes. But it is certain that when he makes water his urine is congealed ice.
  Measure for Measure (3.2.56)
  
• Men from children nothing differ.
  Much Ado About Nothing (5.1.36)
  
• Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.
  Othello (4.2.50)
  
• Thou lump of foul deformity!
  Richard III (1.2.58)
  
• Thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows.
  Troilus and Cressida (2.1.29)

And if you’d like some random barbs to use on anyone but me, check out this Shakespearean insult generator.

Source: all over the web

—Jen