Shakespeare Invented Over 1,700 English Words

William Shakespeare's linguistic creativity was a product of his time; he wrote during the Elizabethan era when the English language was flexible and rapidly evolving. Rather than conjuring words out of thin air, he masterfully manipulated existing language. His common techniques included combining two words to create a new one, such as "lackluster" or "cold-hearted," adding prefixes and suffixes like in "uncomfortable," and changing a word's grammatical function by turning nouns into verbs or verbs into adjectives. This playful approach to language allowed him to express precise emotions and ideas and to meet the metrical demands of his poetry.

It's almost impossible to have a conversation in modern English without using a word or phrase first penned by the Bard. Beyond single words like "dwindle," "fashionable," and "swagger," Shakespeare gave us many of our most common idioms. When you are "in a pickle," on a "wild-goose chase," or trying to "break the ice," you are quoting Shakespeare. The same is true for expressions like "the world is your oyster" and the warning that "all that glitters is not gold."

While Shakespeare is credited with introducing over 1,700 words, it is more accurate to say his works are their first known appearance in writing. Lexicographers and historians note that many of these words may have already been in circulation orally, but Shakespeare was the first to write them down in texts that survived. The sheer volume of his surviving work, combined with his inventive spirit, created a perfect storm of vocabulary expansion. His influence cemented these words and phrases into the English lexicon, where they have remained for over 400 years.