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List of English words invented by Shakespeare

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The rise of the vernacular

The sixteenth century saw the establishment of English as a respectable language alongside French and Latin. Prior to this, legal matters in England were conducted in French, Latin had been used to write history, philosophy and theology, and for the most part writers did not write in their native tongue. The English language had second class-status: the untutored spoke it, while French had been established as the language of the educated after the Normans conquered Britain beginning in 1066 C.E. Three hundred years later, English was the linguistic stepchild. English was thought of as being crude and unstable for scholastic purposes, and it was argued that the vocabulary was too limited and the grammatical structure was too simple for the sophisticated user. The rise of the literary phenomenon was primarily influenced by the printing press. Until the end of the fifteenth century, the vast majority of oral communication was conducted in English, whereas the vast majority of written communication was done in Latin. The mass production and widespread distribution of books tipped the scales in favor of the vernacular. As more people began to read, writers noticed that English had become a practical means of reaching the public. A rise of nationalism also contributed to the rise of the vernacular. As England ascended as a force in European politics, first with Henry VIII and then with Elizabeth I, educators and writers began to associate the English language with English values and national pride. A need to change the structure and vocabulary of the language began to arise.

Changing the language

Early modern English as a literary medium was unfixed in structure and vocabulary in comparison to Greek and Latin, and was in a constant state of flux. When William Shakespeare began writing his plays, the English language was rapidly absorbing words from other cultures due to wars, exploration, diplomacy, and colonization. By the age of Elizabeth, English had become widely used with the expansion of philosophy, theology and physical sciences, but many writers lacked the vocabulary to express such ideas. To accommodate, writers such as Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare expressed new ideas and distinctions by inventing, borrowing or adopting a word or a phrase from another language, a process known as neologizing. From nouns, verbs and modifiers of Latin and Greek and other modern Romance languages, it is estimated that between the years of 1500 and 1659 30,000 new words were added to the English language.[[Citing sources citation needed]]

Words, words, words

In all his plays, Shakespeare reveals his interest for the evolving ideas, words and literary traditions of his time. Shakespeare himself introduced more words into English than all the other writers of his time combined. However, calculating the number of words Shakespeare coined is a difficult process. First, one must define the meaning of coinage. Should variations of existing words or existing words to which he gave new meaning be counted? Should one consider compound words? Also, one must take into account that a word might be considered of Shakespearean origins only because his works have been more thoroughly scrutinized than others of his time. A word might also have existed in oral communication long before Shakespeare set it to paper.

Shakespeare’s own contribution to the expansion of the English language was noticed as early as 1598, when commentator Francis Meres, applauding English literature in relation to the classics, placed Shakespeare among the writers who had dignified the language. Later in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, critics and scholars began to doubt whether Shakespeare had a significant affect on the expansion of English vocabulary. This is mainly based on the neoclassical image of him as a poor Latinist. In the early twentieth century, there was an overreaction to this, so that one critic credited William Shakespeare with having coined nearly 10,000 words. Although most scholars agree that this may be an exaggeration, it is agreed today that Shakespeare did significantly contribute to the English language, creating many words from Latin and some of French and native roots. Overlooking variants of already existing words and compounds, it is estimated conservatively that Shakespeare coined approximately 600 words deriving from Latin alone. However, many, as much as one third, have not survived to modern day English.

Although it is often difficult, if not often impossible, to determine the true origin of a word, the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) verified the following words that Shakespeare originated or words that he was the first to use in print. 

  • yelping (as an adjective)
    • 


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