Coined by Shakespeare: Words and Meanings First Penned by the Bard

Well recommended by my niece for a very interested story on words and phrases

Perfect for my granddaughter, who is a Literary Arts major in NYC! It's as uniquely entertaining as it is astoundingas the fact that we owe so many words to the incomparable Bard!

You've heard too many times that Shakespeare coined thousands of words... but what were they? This book brings to light all of Shakespeare's neologisms-- some we use on a daily basis.Your students will love learning about these words--some dusty and strange sounding, some so common it's almost laughable.

Do you find yourself at a loss for "cocktail chatter" when you attend parties as part of the "rent-a crowd"? This might help you, but I doubt it. I just can't imagine bringing up Shakespearian inventions in any social setting these days.I won't repeat what previous reviewers have written. This is simply a clever little book that you will enjoy paging through, reading random entries, while procrastinating to do something more important. Only Shakespearian geeks will truly enjoy it; I read some of it to my highly educated wife and she seemed not interested. I love it.

According to various sources approximately 1531 words were first coined by Shakespeare. The leading resource on this appears be the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, which, if you leaf through it, you will find highlighted entries, showing who first used these particular words and quoting the play or poem where they were used.By comparison this book, 274 pages long is composed of chapters on each letter, including quizzes, some pictures, an estimated coverage of one and a half words per page, with examples of usage and sometimes ontology, and is a somewhat light hearted look at the use of language, covering 450 to 490 words.You may not know for example that the following words, according to the authors were coined by Shakespeare:Accused, addiction, advertising, auspicious, bandit, baseless, bet, buzzer, courtship, dawn, denote, design, elbow, embrace, engagement, eyeball, fashionable, film, flawed, forward, generous, gloomy, glow, go-between, green-eyed (as in monster), gust, high-pitched (Rape of Lucrece), hint, hush, impede, inaudible, investment, jet, jig, kickshaw, kissing (really?), lackluster, lapse, launder, lonely, lower, luggage, manager, marketable, metamorphise, misquote, monumental, mimic, negotiate, noiseless, numb.Obscene, ode, outbreak, Olympian, pageantry, pedant, perusal, premeditated, promethean, radiance, rant,roadway, reclusive, remorseless, retirement, rival, roadway,rumination, sacrificial, sanctimonious, scuffle, secure, shooting star, stealthy, switch, splitting, swagger, tardiness, threatingly, torture (2 Henry VI), tranquil, transcendence, unaware (V &A), unclog, undress (TTS), unmitigated, unreal, urging, varied, vaulting, watchdog,, weel-behaved, widen, widowed, wild-goose chase (RJ), worm-hole (RL), worthless, yelping (1H IV), yoking (VA), zany.If you read this this book I think you will find it both informative, and entertaining. Why I do not give it a higher number of stars is that I was hoping for a book that includes all the words, so for me this book has a limited appeal and value. The subject is quite interesting.I have researched several of the words published as originated by Shakespeare, in the Oxford edition, and elsewhere. Some words such as jet mentioned above were used by Greene, some coined by Marlowe faceless, light-borne, lineage, sweet-flowering, undecked, so there are some errors in attribution. Undoubtedly words such as kissing must have existed before they were first used in a play or a poem, nevertheless it is interesting to explore the origins.I think you will find it enlightening, and there do not appear to be any inexpensive alternatives. One book I recommend is  Shakespeare's Wordcraft (Softcover) , which includes the use of Shakespearean language patterns, not specifically about coinage although some examples are included.If you decide to get it, I think you will quite like it, and I hope this was helpful.

I bought this book for myself and a copy for my granddaughter, age 13. She had played a leading role in Midsummer's Night two year's ago at her St. Paul elementary school. The experience won her over to Shakespeare. Since I didn't start reading Shakespeare before age 18, I wondered if Coined by Shakespeare would be too far out-of-tune with the romance novels that she was devouring. Well, I've read it now. It is a dandy. A real banger, as Hardy would put it. Rarely does a scholarly book meet the needs of anyone less versed than a PhD. This book, I'm making wager, will charm a 13 year old word lover. We just finished a Minnesota blizzard. I'm tickled that Shakespeare coined "gust."

I was very happy when I received this book in the mail. I needed it for a very important presentation I was doing, and it was very informative and very well laid-out. It's also a very credible source of information. I've recommended it to several people.

The book is an excellent guide for teaching Shakespeare.Five starsThough purchased a uses copy, it is as good as a new one

I had already bought this book for myself and I was so pleased with it that I bought it as a small present for a member of a writing group I belong to. It is invaluable, seeing where the words originated, especially as I am a Tour Guide.

bedroom, lonely, love letter, rival…こうした言葉を発明したのは実はシェイクスピアだったのをご存知ですか？本書には、シェイクスピア発明になる英語の語彙について出典箇所と解説が収められています。また、各章末には楽しいシェイクスピア・クイズが解答付で収められており、色々な角度から楽しめます。語源に関心のある人には必携の書でしょう。