“Household Words”

Common and Uncommon Words Coined by Shakespeare

A—F | G—M | N—R | S—Z

• satisfying (as an adjective)
• * savage (as “uncivilized”)
• savagery
• schoolboy
• scrimer (“a fencer”)
• scroyle (“wretch”)
• scrubbed (Shakespeare meant “stunted”)
• scuffle
• seamy (“seamed”) and seamy side (“under-side of a garment”)
• to secure (Shakespeare meant “obtain security”)
• self-abuse (Shakespeare meant “self-deception”)
• semblative (“resembling”)
• shipwrecked (Shakespeare spelled it “ship-wrackt”)
• shooting star
• shudder (the noun)
• silk stocking
• silliness
• to sire
• skimble-skamble (“senseless”)
• skim milk [in quartos; “skim’d milk” in the Folio]
• slugabed
• to sneak
• sneap (“snub”- as a noun and as a verb)
• soft-hearted
• spectacled
• spilth (“something spilled”)
• spleenful
• sportive
• to squabble
• stealthy
• stillborn
• to subcontract (Shakespeare meant “to remarry”)
• successful
• suffocating (the adjective)
• to sully
• superscript (Shakespeare meant “address written on a letter”)
• superserviceable (“more serviceable than is necessary”)
• to supervise (Shakespeare meant “to peruse”)
• to swagger
• tanling (“someone with a tan”)
• tardiness
• time-honored
• title page [earlier than OED]
• tortive (“twisting”)
• to torture
• traditional (Shakespeare meant “tradition-bound”)
• tranquil
• transcendence
• trippingly
• unaccommodated
• unappeased
• to unbosom
• unchanging
• unclaimed
• * uncomfortable (in the sense “disquieting”)
• to uncurl
• to undervalue (Shakespeare meant “to judge as of lesser value”)
• to undress
• unearthly
• uneducated
• to unfool
• unfrequented
• ungoverned
• ungrown
• to unhand (as in the phrase “unhand me!”)
• to unhappy
• unhelpful
• unhidden
• unlicensed
• unmitigated
• unmusical
• to unmuzzle
• unpolluted
• unpremeditated
• unpublished (Shakespeare meant “undisclosed”)
• unquestionable (Shakespeare meant “impatient”)
• unquestioned
• unreal
• unrivaled
• unscarred
• unscratched
• to unsex
• unsolicited
• unsullied
• unswayed (Shakespeare meant “unused” and “ungoverned”)
• untutored
• unvarnished
• * unwillingness (in the sense “reluctance”)
• upstairs
• useful
• useless
• valueless
• varied (as an adjective)
• varletry
• vasty
• vulnerable
• watchdog
• water drop
• water fly
• well-behaved
• well-bred
• well-educated
• well-read
• to widen (Shakespeare meant “to open wide”)
• wittolly (“contentedly a cuckold”)
• worn out (Shakespeare meant “dearly departed”)
• wry-necked (“crook-necked”)
• yelping (as an adjective)
• zany (a clown’s sidekick or a mocking mimic)