What everyday words has shakespeare invented
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Executive summary
William Shakespeare is widely credited with introducing or first printing many words still common in English — popular claims put that figure at roughly 1,700 words, though specialist projects produce much smaller, more conservative lists [1] [2] [3]. Linguists caution that “first in print” is not the same as literal invention: many words Shakespeare is the earliest known recorder of may already have been spoken in his day, and new textual discoveries can change attributions [4] [5].
1. How many everyday words are attributed to Shakespeare — the headline number and the caveats
The oft-repeated number that Shakespeare “invented” 1,700 words comes from counting words whose earliest surviving printed instances appear in his works, a tally cited by resources such as the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and popular dictionaries [1] [2]; however, specialist projects that exclude compound words and apply stricter criteria produce much smaller totals — for example, the ElizabethanDrama.org project lists 594 single words first attested in works attributed to Shakespeare [3] [6]. Scholars and reference writers repeatedly warn that these tallies reflect what survives in the written record rather than proving Shakespeare alone coined each term, and that ongoing scholarship and digitization of older texts sometimes pushes earlier attestations back further than once thought [4] [5].
2. What kinds of everyday words did Shakespeare introduce into print?
Shakespeare’s lexical creativity shows up in several predictable techniques: attaching prefixes (notably un-), converting nouns to verbs and vice versa, compounding words, borrowing from other languages, and inventing wholly new forms, which produced everyday vocabulary such as “uncomfortable,” “assassination,” “swagger,” “zany,” “bedazzled,” and even concrete nouns like “elbow” as first recorded in his texts, among many others cited by online glossaries and educational sites [7] [8] [9] [10]. Blog compendia and teaching resources list dozens of recognizable everyday terms that first appear in printed English in Shakespeare’s plays and poems, illustrating how his plays supplied words for feelings, physical objects, actions and attitudes that persist in colloquial use [2] [10].
3. Examples readers use every day — short inventory
Common everyday words often traced to Shakespeare include emotive or descriptive words like “uncomfortable” (an example of prefixing), vivid verbs such as “bedazzled,” nouns like “assassination” and “swagger,” and character descriptors such as “dog‑hearted” or “lackluster,” all of which appear in online lists collecting Shakespeare’s lexical firsts and in educational roundups intended to show his linguistic legacy [7] [9] [8] [10]. These items are repeatedly cited across popular and academic-friendly sites that compile Shakespeare’s “firsts,” though they are drawn from different selection rules and so the exact roster of words varies by source [2] [6].
4. Why the myth of a single, fixed number persists
A neat, large figure — “1,700 words” — is compelling shorthand for Shakespeare’s influence and is routinely repeated by cultural institutions and media to capture the imagination of the public, but that number masks methodological choices: what counts as a separate word, whether compounds are included, and whether “first printed” equals “invented” [1] [3] [4]. Projects like ElizabethanDrama.org explicitly challenge the popular figure and argue for transparency about counting rules, underscoring that the history of words is fluid and contingent on surviving texts and editorial judgments [3] [6].
5. The verdict — everyday vocabulary and responsible claims
The responsible conclusion is that Shakespeare left an enormous footprint in English print and is the earliest surviving source for many words now mundane in daily speech, but definitive claims that he single‑handedly invented each of those words oversimplify how language evolves and depend heavily on archival luck and editorial decisions [2] [5] [4]. Readers should therefore treat lists of “Shakespeare‑invented” everyday words as useful demonstrations of his linguistic reach while keeping in mind the scholarly caveats that many of those words may have circulated orally or elsewhere before being penned in his plays and poems [4] [5].