What was shakespeares vocabulary

It is believed that he may have invented or introduced many of these words himself, often by combining words, changing nouns into verbs, adding prefixes or suffixes, and so on. Some words stuck around and some didn't. Although lexicographers are continually discovering new origins and earliest usages of words, below are listed words and definitions we still use today that are widely attributed to Shakespeare.

Alligator: n a large, carnivorous reptile closely related to the crocodile Romeo and Juliet , Act 5 Scene 1. How many words? No one can be sure. One estimates, one from Encyclopedia Americana , puts the number at 50,,, likely not including medical and scientific terms. Edmund Weiner, deputy chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, explains it this way:. The vocabulary of English expanded greatly during the early modern period.

Writers were well aware of this and argued about it. Some were in favour of loanwords to express new concepts, especially from Latin. Others advocated the use of existing English words, or new compounds of them, for this purpose. Others advocated the revival of obsolete words and the adoption of regional dialect. Whatever the size of the English lexicon at the time, Shakespeare was in command of a substantial portion of it.

Jason Kottke estimates that Shakespeare knew around 66, words, which suggests Shakespeare was pushing the boundaries of English vocab as he knew it. He had to make up some new words. Compiling a definitive list of every word that Shakespeare ever invented is impossible. But creating a list of the words that Shakespeare almost certainly invented can be done.

Mobbled adj. Egregious adj. Consanguineous adj. Caper v. Expiate v. Mated adj. Foison n. Guileful adj. Bacchanal n. Raiment n. Welkin n. Gamesome adj. Noddle n. Fleshment n. Sceptered adj. Invested with royal authority. Photographer: Ingrid Pollard. Gratulate v. Peregrinate v. Kicky-wicky n. Bawcock n. Buzzer n. Shakespeare tops you. Which still leaves you better than most. I guess. Some people credit Shakespeare with a vocabulary of 27,, words, but this estimate, others […]. So, presumably, he is learning new words and pushing them to his active vocabulary?

Reality check. Frankly, in the case of my aging wicked stepmother, not only the words remain the same, but also the content! But I digress. Contrary to what is commonly thought, the average literate person today has a vocabulary about times greater than Shakespeare. Firstly, I like the post, and generally agree that we owe it to ourselves to be as self-critical as the anti-stratfordians are incoherent.

Thirdly, I collapse in agreement with Bill Kinsley, but would go further. Any writer would surely plunder his network and their network for suitable information? Ben and Will in the pub. Will asks Ben about some thorny law issue. Obviously beyond proof, but as plausible speculation for supposedly arcane or specialised knowledge, it beats de Vere into a small hat.

On the other hand, I agree that playwrights during this period wrote in isolation. It is a good bet, they knew what their fellow writers were writing.

I agree that building an actual specific argument on the claim that Will may have got something from Ben over beers would be foolhardy. Odd that not a single Oxfordian has commented to parse that glovers of the Elizabethan era were by far the lowliest of the low, that a prerequisite of the occupation was illiteracy, that cobblers, saddlers and bricklayers, middling as they were, were obliged to special, secret educations glovists were denied — or something like that.

Why is it always assumed that if Shakespeare borrowed the plot of Novella A for one of his plays he must have sat down and read the book cover to cover. Shakespeare and Jonson are enjoying a beer in the Mermaid Tavern. It turned out not to be quite my cup of tea, but maybe you could use it. Ward E. Elliott and Robert J. The two papers were written independently, but show similar results. I doubt Shakespeare is exceptional or consistent in the tendency you describe.

There is an important basic point, though: we may know 50, words, even if we use far fewer; Shakespeare may have used around 20, words, even though he knew more than that. But we can know far more words now than Shakespeare ever could know, because English has at least quadrupled its vocabulary over the past years.

The same is true of other early editors Pope etc. The notion that Shakespeare is unlike anyone else and beyond comparison only becomes gospel in the 19th century. No writer on Eton can afford to omit a quotation from the account given by Charles Gildon to Dryden in how John Hales upheld the supremacy of Shakespeare in literature : —. The Enemies of Shakespear would by no means yield him so much Excellence : so that it came to a Resolution of a trial of skill upon that Subject ; the place agreed on for the Dispute was Mr.

This is one meeting that happens to be recorded No doubt there were many others of which there is no record, which came to much the same conclusion: that Shake-speare exceeded the Greek and Roman poets. We have to ask about whom he was talking and what meaning he was trying to convey and to whom. Then there was B that discussed among the few who knew the true story — and a small number at that Eton meeting were probably among them.

If you had read it you would observe that Gildon is responding to the objections to Shakespeare and Jonson that Thomas Rymer had laid out in his Short View of Tragedy.