How Did Shakespeare Invent So Many Words?
William Shakespeare, the great English writer, invented hundreds of words, many of which are still used in English today. But how did he do it?
He put two words together
"Bedroom" might sound like an obvious name for the place where you sleep, but Shakespeare was the first to put together "bed" and "room" in that way. Many of the words Shakespeare invented were created by putting together two existing words in this way, like "birthplace," "farmhouse" and "watchdog."
He changed verbs into adjectives
When it gets cold enough, water freezes and becomes ice. But Shakespeare decided that the verb "to freeze" would also make a great adjective, which is why we can now describe very cold temperatures as "freezing." It's also why we can call a silly idea "laughable," or describe something that satisfies you as "satisfying."
He changed nouns into verbs
Before Shakespeare, your elbow was just a body part. But Shakespeare used "elbow" as a verb for the first time, and today it can be used to mean "to push past someone." He also made "bet" into a verb as well.
He added prefixes and suffixes to words
Just adding a prefix like "un-" to the beginning of a word, or a suffix like "-less" to the end of a word, can completely change its meaning. Shakespeare did this with words like the verb "dress," which means "to put on clothes," to create "undress," which means "to take off clothes." He also made the word "count" into an adjective by changing it to "countless," which means "too many to count."
Making new words didn't start or stop with Shakespeare, however. New words are still being made in the same way today — such as "overshare," which means sharing too much information, which was just added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2021.
