William Shakespeare invented about 1,700 common words that we still use today!
The British playwright is mandatory reading in school, but there's good reason to read his work. We owe a lot to this writing legend who wrote great plays like Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet, and The Merchant of Venice.
Here are 10 words you may not have known were coined by the great playwright himself!
1. Swagger "” (Henry IV)
"An't please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered with me last night."
2. Addiction "” (Othello)
"It is Othello's pleasure, our noble and valiant general, that, upon certain tidings now arrived, importing the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet, every man put himself into triumph; some to dance, some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and revels his addiction leads him."
3. Cold-blooded "” (King John)
"Thou cold-blooded slave, hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side, been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend upon thy stars, thy fortune and thy strength, and dost thou now fall over to my fores?"
4. Arch-Villain "” (Timon of Athens)
"You that way and you this, but two in company; each man apart, all single and alone, yet an arch-villain keeps him company."
5. Eyeball "” (The Tempest)
"Go make thyself like a nymph o' the sea: be subject to no sight but thine and mine, invisible to every eyeball else."
6. Manager "” (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
"Where is our usual manager of mirth? What revels are in hand? Is there no play to ease the anguish of a torturing hour?"
7. Uncomfortable "” (Romeo and Juliet)
"Despised, distressed, hated, martyr'd, kill'd! Uncomfortable time, why camest thou now to murder, murder our solemnity?"
8. Assassination "” (Macbeth)
"If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly: if the assassination could trammel up the consequence, and catch with his surcease success."
9. Bedazzled "” (The Taming of the Shrew)
"Pardon, old father, my mistaking eyes, that have been so bedazzled with the sun that everything I look on seemeth green."
10. Fashionable "” (Troilus And Cressida)
"For time is like a fashionable host that slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, and with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly, grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles, and farewell goes out sighing."
Next are 10 phrases he coined that we still use today!
1. "Love is blind" "” (The Merchant of Venice)
"But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit."
2. "Bated breath" "” (The Merchant of Venice)
"Or, shall I bend low and in a bondman's key, with bated breath and whispering humbleness."
3. "Break the ice" "” (The Taming of the Shrew)
"And if you break the ice and do this feat, achieve the elder, set the younger free, for our access, whose hap shall be to have her, will not so graceless be to be ingrate."
4. "Kill with kindness" "” (The Taming of the Shrew)
"This is a way to kill a wife with kindness, and thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour."
5. "Faint hearted" "” (Henry VI Part I)
"Faint-hearted Woodville. Prizest him 'fore me?"
6. "Devil incarnate" "” (Titus Andronicus / Henry V)
"Yes, that a' did; and said they were devils incarnate."
7. "Set my teeth on edge" "” (Henry IV Part I)
"And that would set my teeth nothing on edge."
8. "For goodness' sake" "” (Henry VIII)
"For goodness sake, consider what you do, how you may hurt yourself"”ay, utterly, grow from the King's acquaintance, by this carriage."
9. "Wear my heart upon my sleeve" "” (Othello)
"In compliment extern, 'tis not long after,but I will wear my heart upon my sleeve, for daws to peck at. I am not what I am."
10. Full circle "” (King Lear)
"The wheel is come full circle. I am here."
How many of these words and phrases do you regularly use?
