Coined by Shakespeare: Words and Meanings First Penned by the Bard

by Stanley Malless, Jeffrey McQuain, R.O. Blechman

The first book ever to focus on Shakespeare's coinages. Discover terms and meanings still used today. Includes fun quizzes on Shakespearean trivia. A must for Bardophiles everywhere!

Genres: Language, Shakespeare, Reference, Nonfiction, History

273 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Mark A.]

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[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shakespeare coined an estimated 1,500 English words. Coined by Shakespeare discusses many of these coinages, citing the play and context of each and how the word has—or hasn't—continued to be used in the ensuing centuries. The word discussions in the book are arranged alphabetically and read like an etymological dictionary.

Many of the words he penned are new forms of existing words; he invented them by doing things like using a noun form of what had only been used as a verb or adding prefixes and suffixes. Some came from names, like pander, which he derived from the character Pandarus in The Iliad. Others, like alligator, came from Spanish el lagarto, "the lizard." Words as varied as addiction, advertising, buzzer, wild-goose chase, wormhole, and zany first found themselves in print on the pages of Shakespeare's plays and poems.

As much as I enjoyed the entries, after a while I wondered why I was reading every page of a book that was in essence a dictionary. Part of the answer lies in the interesting nature of the entries, but what really kept me reading were the quizzes interspersed between each letter of the alphabet's entries. I matched first and ending lines to the plays they came from, answered questions about movie versions of the plays, determined what was fact and what was tradition about Shakespeare's life, took a multiple choice quiz on the Globe theatre, and a lot more. I love quizzes and enjoyed taking them with my daughters and husband.

Next time I teach Shakespeare, I will probably include some of the information about Shakespeare's coinages in the course, but I will definitely use some of the quizzes as a class activity.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was very interesting to not only to see some of the words that Shakespeare came up with, but to see how he came up with them, and why. It was kind of like read a dictionary, but on how the words were made up.

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Coined by Shakespeare: Words and Meanings First Penned by the Bard by Stanley Malless (1998)

[Leah (Jane Speare) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating.

[versarbre]

Words and Meanings First Used by the Bard. A Dictionary.