Mary Campbell’s section in podcast number 220 ‘Disguisings’ about the word bump included a brief discussion about whether or not Shakespeare invented the word bump. Old Billy the Bard is credited with inventing a number of words, or using them for the first time in print. Mary put a list of the things together – it is pretty amazing. Here they are, below! Not all of them in daily use it has to be said…it’s been a while since I called anyone a lewdster. Though I shall endeavour to do so as soon as possible…
WORDS SHAKESPEARE INVENTED: According to shakespeare-online.com, “[Shakespeare] invented over seventeen hundred of our common words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and devising words wholly original.”
The OED has verified the following words as originated or first used in print by Shakespeare:
| academe | lustihood |
| accessible | lustrous |
| accommodation | madcap |
| addiction (Shakespeare meant ‘tendency’) | madwoman |
| admirable | majestic |
| aerial (Shakespeare meant ‘of the air’) | malignancy (Shakespeare meant ‘malign tendency’) |
| airless | manager |
| amazement | marketable |
| anchovy | marriage bed |
| arch-villain | militarist (Shakespeare meant ‘soldier’) |
| to arouse | mimic (as a noun) |
| assassination | misgiving (sense ‘uneasiness’) |
| auspicious | misquote |
| bacheolorship (‘bachelorhood’) | mockable (as ‘deserving ridicule’) |
| to barber | money’s worth (‘money-worth’ dates from the 14th century) |
| barefaced | monumental |
| baseless | moonbeam |
| batty (Shakespeare meant ‘bat-like’) | mortifying (as an adjective) |
| beachy (‘beach-covered’) | motionless |
| to bedabble | mountaineer (Shakespeare meant as ‘mountain-dweller’) |
| to bedazzle | to muddy |
| bedroom (Shakespeare meant a ‘room in bed’) | neglect (as a noun) |
| to belly (‘to swell’) | to negotiate |
| belongings | never-ending |
| to besmirch | newsmonger |
| to bet | nimble-footed |
| to bethump | noiseless |
| birthplace | nook-shotten (‘full of corners or angles’) |
| black-faced | to numb |
| to blanket | obscene (Shakespeare meant ‘revolting’) |
| bloodstained | ode |
| bloodsucking | to offcap (to ‘doff one’s cap’) |
| blusterer | offenseful (meaning ‘sinful’) |
| bodikins (‘little bodies’) | offenseless (‘unoffending’) |
| bold-faced | Olympian (Shakespeare meant ‘Olympic’) |
| braggartism | to operate |
| brisky | oppugnancy (‘antagonism’) |
| broomstaff (‘broom-handle’) | outbreak |
| budger (‘one who budges’) | to outdare |
| bump (as a noun) | to outfrown |
| buzzer (Shakespeare meant ‘tattle-tale’) | to out-Herod |
| to cake | to outscold |
| candle holder | to outsell (Shakespeare meant ‘to exceed in value’) |
| to canopy | to out-talk |
| to cater (as ‘to bring food’) | to out-villain |
| to castigate | to outweigh |
| catlike | overblown (Shakespeare meant ‘blown over’) |
| to champion | overcredulous |
| characterless | overgrowth |
| cheap (in pejorative sense of ‘vulgar’) | to overpay |
| chimney-top | to overpower |
| chopped (Shakespeare meant ‘chapped’) | to overrate |
| churchlike | overview (Shakespeare meant as ‘supervision’) |
| circumstantial | pageantry |
| cold-blooded | to palate (Shakespeare meant ‘to relish’) |
| coldhearted | pale-faced |
| compact (as noun ‘agreement’) | to pander |
| to comply | passado (a kind of sword-thrust) |
| to compromise (Shakespeare meant ‘to agree’) | paternal |
| consanguineous | pebbled |
| control (as a noun) | pedant (Shakespeare meant a schoolmaster) |
| coppernose (‘a kind of acne’) | pedantical |
| countless | pendulous (Shakespeare meant ‘hanging over’) |
| courtship | to perplex |
| to cow (as ‘intimidate’) | to petition |
| critical | pignut (a type of tuber) |
| cruelhearted | pious |
| to cudgel | please-man (a ‘yes-man’) |
| Dalmatian | plumpy (‘plump’) |
| to dapple | posture (Shakespeare seems to have meant ‘position’ or ‘positioning’) |
| dauntless | prayerbook |
| dawn (as a noun) | priceless |
| day’s work | profitless |
| deaths-head | Promethean |
| defeat (the noun) | protester (Shakespeare meant ‘one who affirms’) |
| to denote | published (Shakespeare meant ‘commonly recognized’) |
| depositary (as ‘trustee’) | to puke |
| dewdrop | puppy-dog |
| dexterously (Shakespeare spelled it ‘dexteriously’) | pushpin (Shakespeare was referring to a children’s game) |
| disgraceful (Shakespeare meant ‘unbecoming’) | on purpose |
| to dishearten | quarrelsome |
| to dislocate | in question (as in ‘the … in question’) |
| distasteful (Shakespeare meant ‘showing disgust’) | radiance |
| distrustful | to rant |
| dog-weary | rascally |
| doit (a Dutch coin: ‘a pittance’) | rawboned (meaning ‘very gaunt’) |
| domineering | reclusive |
| downstairs | refractory |
| East Indies | reinforcement (Shakespeare meant ‘renewed force’) |
| to educate | reliance |
| to elbow | remorseless |
| embrace (as a noun) | reprieve (as a noun) |
| employer | resolve (as a noun) |
| employment | restoration |
| enfranchisement | restraint (as ‘reserve’) |
| engagement | retirement |
| to enmesh | to reverb (‘to re-echo’) |
| enrapt | revokement (‘revocation’) |
| to enthrone | revolting (Shakespeare meant as ‘rebellious’) |
| epileptic | to reword (Shakespeare meant ‘repeat’) |
| equivocal | ring carrier (a ‘go-between’) |
| eventful | to rival (meaning to ‘compete’). |
| excitement (Shakespeare meant ‘incitement’) | roadway |
| expedience | roguery |
| expertness | rose-cheeked |
| exposure | rose-lipped |
| eyeball | rumination |
| eyedrop (Shakespeare meant as a ‘tear’) | ruttish |
| eyewink | sanctimonious |
| fair-faced | to sate |
| fairyland | satisfying (as an adjective) |
| fanged | savage (as ‘uncivilized’) |
| fap (‘intoxicated’) | savagery |
| farmhouse | schoolboy |
| far-off | scrimer (‘a fence’) |
| fashionable | scrubbed (Shakespeare meant ‘stunted’) |
| fashionmonger | scuffle |
| fathomless (Shakespeare meant ‘too huge to be encircled by one’s arms’) | seamy (‘seamed’) and seamy-side (Shakespeare meant ‘under-side of a garment’) |
| fat-witted | to secure (Shakespeare meant ‘to obtain security’) |
| featureless (Shakespeare meant ‘ugly’) | self-abuse (Shakespeare meant ‘self-deception’) |
| fiendlike | shipwrecked (Shakespeare spelled it ‘shipwrackt’) |
| to fishify (‘turn into fish’) | shooting star |
| fitful | shudder (as a noun) |
| fixture (Shakespeare meant ‘fixing’ or setting ‘firmly in place’) | silk stocking |
| fleshment (‘the excitement of first success’) | silliness |
| flirt-gill (a ‘floozy’) | to sire |
| flowery (‘full of florid expressions’) | skimble-skamble (‘senseless’) |
| fly-bitten | skim milk (in quarto; ‘skim’d milk’ in the Folio) |
| footfall | slugabed |
| foppish | to sneak |
| foregone | soft-hearted |
| fortune-teller | spectacled |
| foul mouthed | spilth (‘something spilled’) |
| Franciscan | spleenful |
| freezing (as an adjective) | sportive |
| fretful | to squabble |
| frugal | stealthy |
| full-grown | stillborn |
| fullhearted | to subcontract (Shakespeare meant ‘to remarry’) |
| futurity | successful |
| gallantry (Shakespeare meant ‘gallant people’) | suffocating (as an adjective) |
| garden house | to sully |
| generous (Shakespeare meant ‘gentle,’ ‘noble’) | to supervise (Shakespeare meant ‘to peruse’) |
| gentlefolk | to swagger |
| glow (as a noun) | tanling (someone with a tan) |
| to glutton | tardiness |
| to gnarl | time-honored |
| go-between | title page |
| to gossip (Shakespeare meant ‘to make oneself at home like a gossip—that is, a kindred spirit or a fast friend’) | tortive (‘twisted’) |
| grass plot | to torture |
| gravel-blind | traditional (Shakespeare meant ‘tradition-bound’) |
| gray-eyed | tranquil |
| green-eyed | transcendence |
| grief-shot (as ‘sorrow-stricken’) | trippingly |
| grime (as a noun) | unaccommodated |
| to grovel | unappeased |
| gust (as a ‘wind-blast’) | to unbosom |
| half-blooded | unchanging |
| to happy (‘to gladden’) | unclaimed |
| heartsore | uncomfortable (sense ‘disquieting’) |
| hedge-pig | to uncurl |
| hell-born | to undervalue (Shakespeare meant ‘to judge as of lesser value’) |
| to hinge | to undress |
| hint (as a noun) | unearthy |
| hobnail (as a noun) | uneducated |
| homely (sense ‘ugly’) | to unfool |
| honey-tongued | unfrequented |
| hornbook (an ‘alphabet tablet’) | ungoverned |
| hostile | ungrown |
| hot-blooded | to unhappy |
| howl (as a noun) | unhelpful |
| to humor | unhidden |
| hunchbacked | unlicensed |
| hurly (as a ‘commotion’) | unmitigated |
| to hurry | unmusical |
| idle-headed | to un muzzle |
| ill-tempered | unpolluted |
| ill-used | unpremeditated |
| impartial | unpublished (Shakespeare meant ‘undisclosed’) |
| to impede | unquestionable (Shakespeare meant ‘impatient’) |
| imploratory (‘solicitor’) | unquestioned |
| import (the noun: ‘importance’ or ‘signifigance’) | unreal |
| inaudible | unrivaled |
| inauspicious | unscarred |
| indirection | unscratched |
| indistinguishable | to unsex |
| inducement | unsolicited |
| informal (Shakespeare meant ‘unformed’ or ‘irresolute’) | unsullied |
| to inhearse (to ‘load into a hearse’) | unswayed (Shakespeare meant ‘unused’ and ‘ungoverned’) |
| to inlay | untutored |
| to instate (Shakespeare, who spelled it ‘enstate,’ meant ‘to endow’) | unvarnished |
| inventorially (‘in detail’) | unwillingness (sense ‘reluctance’) |
| investment (Shakespeare meant as ‘a piece of clothing’) | upstairs |
| invitation | unsolicited |
| invulnerable | unvarnished |
| jaded (Shakespeare seems to have meant ‘contemptible’) | useful |
| juiced (‘juicy’) | useless |
| keech (‘solidified fat’) | valueless |
| kickie-wickie (a derogatory term for a wife) | varied (as an adjective) |
| kitchen-wench | varletry |
| lackluster | vasty |
| ladybird | vulnerable |
| lament | watchdog |
| land-rat | water drop |
| to lapse | water fly |
| laughable | well-behaved |
| leaky | well-bred |
| leapfrog | well-educated |
| lewdster | well-read |
| loggerhead (Shakespeare meant ‘blockhead’) | to widen (Shakespeare meant ‘to open wide’) |
| lonely (Shakespeare meant ‘lone’) | wittolly (‘contentedly a cuckhold’) |
| long-legged | worn out (Shakespeare meant ‘dearly departed’) |
| love letter | wry-necked (‘crook-necked’) |
| yelping (as an adjective) | |
| zany (a clown’s sidekick or a mocking mimic) |
