The Droeshout portrait of William Shakespeare- Image via Wikipedia.com

5 Commonly Used Modern Words Invented By William Shakespeare

Not surprisingly, the most famous writer in history had a way with words

Andrew Martin
4 min readMay 7, 2023

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British playwright William Shakespeare is the embodiment of literature even now more than 400 years after his death. His compelling plots and divine prose still make him a household name today, even for people who may not have read his most celebrated works. He was such a talented writer that he coined and popualrized hundreds of words during his prolific career, including these five which are still reguarly used in every day parlance.

Born in 1564, Shakespeare became so famous as a writer that he has gained the informal titles of the “National Poet” of England and “The Bard.” His impressive portfolio includes 39 plays, 154 sonnets and a number of poems. Subsequent centuries have been heavilyy influenced by some of his most famous works, including Romeo and Juliette, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of the Shrew among many others.

In the course of writing so many timeless classics, Shakespeare was innovative in the creation and use of language. Incredibly, Shakespeare.org claims that the writer was responsible for inventing or introducing to a mass audience more than 1,700 word in the English language. Considering that he “only” used a little over 20,000…

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Andrew Martin

Dabbler in history, investing & writing. Master’s degree in baseball history. Passionate about history, diversity, culture, sports, film and investing .