Words Shakespeare Invented

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.

This list of words that we use in our daily speech were all brought into usage by Shakespeare:

  • 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

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    Read phrases that Shakespeare invented >>