--- title: List of English words invented by Shakespeare date: 2006-03-16T21:41:15Z modified: 2017-11-21T17:59:06Z permalink: "https://dogwonder.co.uk/2006/03/list-of-english-words-invented-by-shakespeare/" type: post status: publish excerpt: William Shakespeare introduced more words into English than all other poets of his lifetime combined. Although it is often difficult to determine the true origin of a word, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) verified the following words Shakespeare originated or words that he was the first to use in print. wpid: 257 categories: - General tags: - language - words --- List of English words invented by Shakespeare _Originally via [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_invented_by_Shakespeare)_ [William Shakespeare](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare "William Shakespeare") introduced more words into English than all other poets of his lifetime combined. Although it is often difficult to determine the true origin of a word, the [Oxford English Dictionary](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary "Oxford English Dictionary") (OED) verified the following words Shakespeare originated or words that he was the first to use in print. - Academe - accessible - accommodation - addiction (Shakespeare meant ‘tendency’) - admirable - aerial (Shakespeare meant ‘of the air’) - airless - amazement - anchovy - arch-villain - to arouse - assassination - auspicious - bacheolorship (‘bachelorhood’) - to barber - barefaced - baseless - batty (Shakespeare meant ‘bat-like’) - beachy (‘beach-covered’) - to bedabble - to bedazzle - bedroom (Shakespeare meant a ‘room in bed’) - to belly (‘to swell’) - belongings - to besmirch - to bet - to bethump - birthplace - black-faced - to blanket - bloodstained - bloodsucking - blusterer - bodikins (‘little bodies’) - bold-faced - braggartism - brisky - broomstaff (‘broom-handle’) - budger (‘one who budges’) - bump (as a noun) - buzzer (Shakespeare meant ‘tattle-tale’) - to cake - candle holder - to canopy - to cater (as ‘to bring food’) - to castigate - catlike - to champion - characterless - cheap (in pejorative sense of ‘vulgar’) - chimney-top - chopped (Shakespeare meant ‘chapped’) - churchlike - circumstantial - cold-blooded - coldhearted - compact (as noun ‘agreement’) - to comply - to compromise (Shakespeare meant ‘to agree’) - consanguineous - control (as a noun) - coppernose (‘a kind of acne’) - countless - courtship - to cow (as ‘intimidate’) - critical - cruelhearted - to cudgel - Dalmatian - to dapple - dauntless - dawn (as a noun) - day’s work - deaths-head - defeat (the noun) - to denote - depositary (as ‘trustee’) - dewdrop - dexterously (Shakespeare spelled it ‘dexteriously’) - disgraceful (Shakespeare meant ‘unbecoming’) - to dishearten - to dislocate - distasteful (Shakespeare meant ‘showing disgust’) - distrustful - dog-weary - doit (a Dutch coin: ‘a pittance’) - domineering - downstairs - East Indies - to educate - to elbow - embrace (as a noun) - employer - employment - enfranchisement - engagement - to enmesh - enrapt - to enthrone - epileptic - equivocal - eventful - excitement (Shakespeare meant ‘incitement’) - expedience - expertness - exposure - eyeball - eyedrop (Shakespeare meant as a ‘tear’) - eyewink - fair-faced - fairyland - fanged - fap (‘intoxicated’) - farmhouse - far-off - fashionable - fashionmonger - fathomless (Shakespeare meant ‘too huge to be encircled by one’s arms’) - fat-witted - featureless (Shakespeare meant ‘ugly’) - fiendlike - to fishify (‘turn into fish’) - fitful - fixture (Shakespeare meant ‘fixing’ or setting ‘firmly in place’) - fleshment (‘the excitement of first success’) - flirt-gill (a ‘floozy’) - flowery (‘full of florid expressions’) - fly-bitten - footfall - foppish - foregone - fortune-teller - foul mouthed - Franciscan - freezing (as an adjective) - fretful - frugal - full-grown - fullhearted - futurity - gallantry (Shakespeare meant ‘gallant people’) - garden house - generous (Shakespeare meant ‘gentle,’ ‘noble’) - gentlefolk - glow (as a noun) - to glutton - to gnarl - go-between - to gossip (Shakespeare meant ‘to make oneself at home like a gossip—that is, a kindred spirit or a fast friend’) - grass plot - gravel-blind - gray-eyed - green-eyed - grief-shot (as ‘sorrow-stricken’) - grime (as a noun) - to grovel - gust (as a ‘wind-blast’) - half-blooded - to happy (‘to gladden’) - heartsore - hedge-pig - hell-born - to hinge - hint (as a noun) - hobnail (as a noun) - homely (sense ‘ugly’) - honey-tongued - hornbook (an ‘alphabet tablet’) - hostile - hot-blooded - howl (as a noun) - to humor - hunchbacked - hurly (as a ‘commotion’) - to hurry - idle-headed - ill-tempered - ill-used - impartial - to impede - imploratory (‘solicitor’) - import (the noun: ‘importance’ or ‘signifigance’) - inaudible - inauspicious - indirection - indistinguishable - inducement - informal (Shakespeare meant ‘unformed’ or ‘irresolute’) - to inhearse (to ‘load into a hearse’) - to inlay - to instate (Shakespeare, who spelled it ‘enstate,’ meant ‘to endow’) - inventorially (‘in detail’) - investment (Shakespeare meant as ‘a piece of clothing’) - invitation - invulnerable - jaded (Shakespeare seems to have meant ‘contemptible’) - juiced (‘juicy’) - keech (‘solidified fat’) - kickie-wickie (a derogatory term for a wife) - kitchen-wench - lackluster - ladybird - lament - land-rat - to lapse - laughable - leaky - leapfrog - lewdster - loggerhead (Shakespeare meant ‘blockhead’) - lonely (Shakespeare meant ‘lone’) - long-legged - love letter - lustihood - lustrous - madcap - madwoman - majestic - malignancy (Shakespeare meant ‘malign tendency’) - manager - marketable - marriage bed - militarist (Shakespeare meant ‘soldier’) - mimic (as a noun) - misgiving (sense ‘uneasiness’) - misquote - mockable (as ‘deserving ridicule’) - money’s worth (‘money-worth’ dates from the 14th century) - monumental - moonbeam - mortifying (as an adjective) - motionless - mountaineer (Shakespeare meant as ‘mountain-dweller’) - to muddy - neglect (as a noun) - to negotiate - never-ending - newsmonger - nimble-footed - noiseless - nook-shotten (‘full of corners or angles’) - to numb - obscene (Shakespeare meant ‘revolting’) - ode - to offcap (to ‘doff one’s cap’) - offenseful (meaning ‘sinful’) - offenseless (‘unoffending’) - Olympian (Shakespeare meant ‘Olympic’) - to operate - oppugnancy (‘antagonism’) - outbreak - to outdare - to outfrown - to out-Herod - to outscold - to outsell (Shakespeare meant ‘to exceed in value’) - to out-talk - to out-villain - to outweigh - overblown (Shakespeare meant ‘blown over’) - overcredulous - overgrowth - to overpay - to overpower - to overrate - overview (Shakespeare meant as ‘supervision’) - pageantry - to palate (Shakespeare meant ‘to relish’) - pale-faced - to pander - passado (a kind of sword-thrust) - paternal - pebbled - pedant (Shakespeare meant a schoolmaster) - pedantical - pendulous (Shakespeare meant ‘hanging over’) - to perplex - to petition - pignut (a type of tuber) - pious - please-man (a ‘yes-man’) - plumpy (‘plump’) - posture (Shakespeare seems to have meant ‘position’ or ‘positioning’) - prayerbook - priceless - profitless - Promethean - protester (Shakespeare meant ‘one who affirms’) - published (Shakespeare meant ‘commonly recognized’) - to puke - puppy-dog - pushpin (Shakespeare was referring to a children’s game) - on purpose - quarrelsome - in question (as in ‘the … in question’) - radiance - to rant - rascally - rawboned (meaning ‘very gaunt’) - reclusive - refractory - reinforcement (Shakespeare meant ‘renewed force’) - reliance - remorseless - reprieve (as a noun) - resolve (as a noun) - restoration - restraint (as ‘reserve’) - retirement - to reverb (‘to re-echo’) - revokement (‘revocation’) - revolting (Shakespeare meant as ‘rebellious’) - to reword (Shakespeare meant ‘repeat’) - ring carrier (a ‘go-between’) - to rival (meaning to ‘compete’). - roadway - roguery - rose-cheeked - rose-lipped - rumination - ruttish - sanctimonious - to sate - satisfying (as an adjective) - savage (as ‘uncivilized’) - savagery - schoolboy - scrimer (‘a fence’) - scrubbed (Shakespeare meant ‘stunted’) - scuffle - seamy (‘seamed’) and seamy-side (Shakespeare meant ‘under-side of a garment’) - to secure (Shakespeare meant ‘to obtain security’) - self-abuse (Shakespeare meant ‘self-deception’) - shipwrecked (Shakespeare spelled it ‘shipwrackt’) - shooting star - shudder (as a noun) - silk stocking - silliness - to sire - skimble-skamble (‘senseless’) - skim milk (in quarto; ‘skim’d milk’ in the Folio) - slugabed - to sneak - soft-hearted - spectacled - spilth (‘something spilled’) - spleenful - sportive - to squabble - stealthy - stillborn - to subcontract (Shakespeare meant ‘to remarry’) - successful - suffocating (as an adjective) - to sully - to supervise (Shakespeare meant ‘to peruse’) - to swagger - tanling (someone with a tan) - tardiness - time-honored - title page - tortive (‘twisted’) - to torture - traditional (Shakespeare meant ‘tradition-bound’) - tranquil - transcendence - trippingly - unaccommodated - unappeased - to unbosom - unchanging - unclaimed - uncomfortable (sense ‘disquieting’) - to uncurl - to undervalue (Shakespeare meant ‘to judge as of lesser value’) - to undress - unearthy - uneducated - to unfool - unfrequented - ungoverned - ungrown - to unhappy - unhelpful - unhidden - unlicensed - unmitigated - unmusical - to un muzzle - unpolluted - unpremeditated - unpublished (Shakespeare meant ‘undisclosed’) - unquestionable (Shakespeare meant ‘impatient’) - unquestioned - unreal - unrivaled - unscarred - unscratched - to unsex - unsolicited - unsullied - unswayed (Shakespeare meant ‘unused’ and ‘ungoverned’) - untutored - unvarnished - unwillingness (sense ‘reluctance’) - upstairs - unsolicited - unvarnished - useful - useless - valueless - varied (as an adjective) - varletry - vasty - vulnerable - watchdog - water drop - water fly - well-behaved - well-bred - well-educated - well-read - to widen (Shakespeare meant ‘to open wide’) - wittolly (‘contentedly a cuckhold’) - worn out (Shakespeare meant ‘dearly departed’) - wry-necked (‘crook-necked’) - yelping (as an adjective) - zany (a clown’s sidekick or a mocking mimic)