Shakespeare’s Linguistic Innovation
Context
Para1The early modern period was a time when English bloomed as a literary language, and
many writers played with its possibilities. According to recent scholarly investigation,
Shakespeare probably invented or coined about 500–1000 new words, usually by borrowing
a word from another language like French or Latin, adapting existing English words
with prefixes, or using a known word as a different part of speech. He is often credited
with inventing many more words and phrases, but some of those attributions may be
due to Shakespeare being over-represented in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Para2Some examples of words Shakespeare coined include:
assassination
bandit
courtship
obscene
pageantry
tranquil
remorseless
Techniques
Para3One of Shakespeare’s favorite techniques was to add the prefix “un” to an existing
word, as when Lady Macbeth exclaims,
Come you spirits, unsex me here(1.5.39). He also loved to create compound words, such as describing someone as a
lack-beard,or extolling the beauty of the
temple-haunting martlet,
sky-aspiring thoughts,or
lazy-pacing clouds.
Nominalization
Para4Shakespeare also used nouns as verbs or adjectives as nouns throughout his plays,
a process called nominalization. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, Shakespeare parodies this technique as he allows Evans to say,
I will description the matter to you(1.1.196). Another example is Prospero’s
the dark backward and abysm of time(The Tempest 1.2.50). Backward is used as a noun, instead of performing its usual adverbial function.
Compounding
Para5One example of the way Shakespeare played with compound words as an indicator of a
character’s pretentiousness was in Love’s Labour’s Lost. In this play, Don Armado is a knight who loves words, and he is writing to the young
King of Navarre, reporting that he has seen a servant meeting with a young woman,
and says:
Great deputy, the welkin’s vice-regent, and sole dominator of nature […] So it is, besieged with sable-colored melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing humor to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air […] Where […] I did encounter that obscene and most preposterous event, that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-colored ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or see'st.(1.1.218–43)
Para6Much of this play parodies and delights in excesses in language, which Don Armado
has on full display in this passage with its many compounded descriptions. Small wonder
that at one stage the page Moth remarks that
They have been at a great feast of languages, and stol’n the scraps(5.1.37–38). Shakespeare clearly loved that kind of feast, and it is one of the things that readers, audiences, and actors clearly also love centuries later.
Key Print Sources
Crystal, David, and Ben Crystal. Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary and Language Companion. Penguin Books, 2004.
Salmon, Vivian.
Elizabethan English.The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare, ed. Michael Dobson and Stanley Wells. Oxford University Press, 2001.
Key Online Sources
Batistella, Edwin.
Shakespeare’s Linguistic Legacy.Oxford University Press Blogs. 10 Apr. 2016. https://blog.oup.com/2016/04/shakespeare-linguistic-legacy/. Accessed 20 Jun. 2023.
Best, Michael.
Fire-New Words.Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions. University of Victoria. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/literature/language/puns.html. Accessed 12 Mar. 2016.
Mabillard, Amanda.
Words Shakespeare Invented.Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000. https://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/wordsinvented.html. Accessed 24 Apr. 2016.
Prosopography
Kate McPherson
Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley
University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity
in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities
Institute,
Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom,at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.
Katelyn Ekker
Katelyn Ekker was an Honors student at Utah Valley University.
Leah Hamby
Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed
several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from
Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her
other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.
Michael Best
Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the
Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the
ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery,
a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on
Electronic Shakespeares,and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.
Navarra Houldin
Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual
remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major
in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary
research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They
are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice
Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.
Orgography
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
University of Victoria (UVIC1)
https://www.uvic.ca/Metadata
| Authority title | Shakespeare’s Linguistic Innovation |
| Type of text | Critical |
| Publisher | University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform |
| Series | Early Modern England Encyclopedia |
| Source |
By Katelyn Ekker, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
|
| Editorial declaration | This document uses Canadian English spelling |
| Edition | Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a |
| Sponsor(s) |
Early Modern England EncyclopediaAnthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
|
| Encoding description | Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines |
| Document status | published, peer-reviewed |
| Funder(s) |
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mitacs Globablink Research Internship |
| License/availability |
Intellectual copyright in this entry is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions:
(1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of
the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3)
the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes
of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without
the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor
the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion
into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are
considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.
|