In addition, the words he created were comprehensible intuitively because, once again, they were often built on the foundations of already existing words, and were not just unintelligible combinations of sound. (Earlier plays were written primarily in rhyming verse.) ShakespeareвЂ™s prose was similar to the style and cadence of everyday conversation in Elizabethan England, making it natural for members of his audience to understand. Why? Two main reasons.ДЇirst, Shakespeare was part of a movement in English literatureВ that introduced more proseВ into plays. Though today readers often need the help of modern English translationsВ to fully grasp the nuance and meaning of ShakespeareвЂ™s language, ShakespeareвЂ™s contemporary audience would have had a much easier go of it. We can call what Shakespeare did to create new words вЂњminting,вЂќ вЂњcoiningвЂќ or вЂњinventing.вЂќ Whatever term we use to describe it, Shakespeare was doing things with words that no one hadВ ever thought to do before, andВ thatвЂ™s what matters.

He coined them for his own special use to express his own special meanings in his own special passages but they are so expressive and so well framed to be exponents of certain particulars in meanings common to us all, that they deserve to become generally adopted and used. Shakespeare, with the right and might of a true poet, and with his peculiar royal privilege as king of all poets, has minted several words that deserve to become current in our language. HereвЂ™s how they explain ShakespeareвЂ™s literary innovations: The most exhaustive take on ShakespeareвЂ™s invented words comes from a nice little 874-page book entitled The Shakespeare Key by Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke. More specifically, he would create new words by: When he invented words, he did it by working with existing words and altering them in new ways. Words like these arenвЂ™t just meaningless, theyвЂ™re also disposable, intended to be used just once. Lewis Carroll does in the first stanza of his вЂњJabberwockyвЂќ poem:Д¬arroll totally made up words like вЂњbrillig,вЂќ вЂњslithy,вЂќ вЂњtoves,вЂќ and вЂњmimsyвЂќ the first stanza alone contains 11 of these made-up words, which are known as nonce words.

Some writers invent words in the same way Thomas Edison invented light bulbs: they cobble together bits of sound and create entirely new words without any meaning or relation to existing words. What does it even mean to вЂњinventвЂќ a word? How Did Shakespeare InventВ Words? The list a ways down below contains the 420 words that almost certainly originated from Shakespeare himself.Д«ut all this leads to another question. However, while Shakespeare might have been just the first person to write down some words, he definitely did create many words himself, plenty of which we still use to this day. The fact that the word first appears there does not necessarily mean that he made it up himself, but rather, he could have borrowed it from his peers or from conversations he had with others. Ryan Buda, a writer at Letterpile, explains it like this:Д«ut most likely, the word was in use for some time before it is seen in the writings of Shakespeare. So itвЂ™s highly likely that Shakespeare didnвЂ™t invent all ofВ these words he just produced the first preserved record of some of them. In reality, though, many of these words were probably part of everyday discourse in Elizabethan England. Shakespeare appears as the first documented user of more words than any other writer, making it convenient to assume that he was the creator of all of those words. This famous dictionary (often called the OED for short) is famous, in part, because it provides incredibly thorough definitions of words, but also because it identifies the first time each word actually appeared in written English. So whoвЂ™s to blame for the uncertainty around the number of words Shakespeare invented? For starters, we can blameВ the Oxford English Dictionary. How Many Words Did Shakespeare Invent?ДЎ700! My, what a perfectly round number! Such a large and perfectly round number is misleading at best, and is more likely just wrong-there is in fact a bunch of debate about the accuracy of this number. By a long shot.Д«ut what does it mean to вЂњinventвЂќ words? How many words did Shakespeare invent? What kind of words? And whichВ words are those exactly? Rather than just listing all the words Shakespeare invented, this post digs deeper into the how and the why (or вЂњwhereforeвЂќ) of ShakespeareвЂ™s literary creations. And he invented more words-words that continue to shape the English language-than anyone else. But while all these people invented things, itвЂ™s possible to invent something even more fundamental. Hedy Lamar, meanwhile, may have been a Hollywood star but a new book makes clear her real legacy is in inventing the foundations of encryption. Steve Jobs is considered a saint in Silicon Valley. Thomas Edison is held up as a tinkering genius.

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