Shakespeare and language

The English language owes a great debt to Shakespeare. He invented over 1700 of our common words. See some of his words listed and hyperlinked to his original plays at Shakespeare's Influence.

Examples:
All the words following were created by Shakespeare, never having existed before he put them into his works.


Nouns:
accused, addiction, alligator, amazement, anchovies, assassination, backing, bandit, bedroom, bump, buzzers, courtship, critic, dauntless, dawn, design, dickens, discontent, embrace, employer, engagements, excitements, exposure, eyeball, fixture, futurity, glow, gust, hint, immediacy, investments, kickshaws, leapfrog, luggage, manager, mimic, misgiving, mountaineer, ode, outbreak, pageantry, pedant, perusal, questioning, reinforcement, retirement, roadway, rumination, savagery, scuffles, shudders, switch, tardiness, transcendence, urging, watchdog, wormhole, zany

Verbs:
besmirch, bet, blanket, cake, cater, champion, compromise, cow, denote, deracinate, dialogue, dislocate, divest, drug, dwindle, elbow, enmesh, film, forward, gossip, grovel, hobnob, humour, hurry, impedes, jet, jig, label, lapse, lower, misquote, negotiate, numb, pander, partner, petition, puke, rant, reword, secure, submerge, swagger, torture, unclog

Adjectives:
aerial, auspicious, baseless, beached, bloodstained, blushing, circumstantial, consanguineous, deafening, disgraceful, domineering, enrapt, epileptic, equivocal, eventful, fashionable, foregone, frugal, generous, gloomy, gnarled, hush, inaudible, invulnerable, jaded, juiced, lackluster, laughable, lonely, lustrous, madcap, majestic, marketable, monumental, nervy, noiseless, oscene, olympian, premeditated, promethean, quarrelsome, radiance, rancorous, reclusive, remorseless, rival, sacrificial, sanctimonious, softhearted, splitting, stealthy, traditional, tranquil, unmitigated, unreal, varied, vaulting, viewless, widowed, worthless, yelping

Adverbs:
importantly, instinctively, obsequiously, threateningly, tightly, trippingly, unaware

Professor David Crystal is one of the world's foremost experts on language. Read some of his articles on Shakespeare's language.

FYI - Reading Shakespeare has dramatic effect on human brain