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135 Phrases coined by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare contributed more phrases and sayings to the English language than any other individual, and most of them are still in daily use.

Here's a collection of well-known quotations that are associated with Shakespeare.

Most of these were the Bard's own work, but he wasn't averse to stealing a good line occasionally and a few of these were 'popularised by' rather than 'coined by' Shakespeare.

Full list of Shakespearian phrases:
A countenance more in sorrow than in anger A Daniel come to judgement A dish fit for the gods A fool's paradise A foregone conclusion A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse A ministering angel shall my sister be A plague on both your houses A rose by any other name would smell as sweet A sea change A sorry sight Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio All corners of the world All of a sudden All one to me All that glitters is not gold / All that glisters is not gold All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players All's well that ends well An ill-favoured thing sir, but mine own And shining morning face, creeping like a snail unwillingly to school And thereby hangs a tale As cold as any stone As dead as a doornail As good luck would have it As merry as the day is long As pure as the driven snow At one fell swoop Bag and baggage Bated breath Be all and end all Beast with two backs Beware the ides of March Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks Brevity is the soul of wit But screw your courage to the sticking-place But, for my own part, it was Greek to me Come the three corners of the world in arms Come what come may Comparisons are odorous Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war Dash to pieces Discretion is the better part of valour Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble Eaten out of house and home Even at the turning of the tide Exceedingly well read Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man Fight fire with fire For ever and a day Frailty, thy name is woman Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears Good men and true Good riddance Green eyed monster Hark, hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings He will give the Devil his due Heart's content His beard was as white as snow Hoist by your own petard Hot-blooded Household words How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child I bear a charmed life I have not slept one wink I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips I will wear my heart upon my sleeve If music be the food of love, play on In my mind's eye, Horatio In stitches In the twinkling of an eye Is this a dagger which I see before me? It beggar'd all description It is meat and drink to me Keep your distance Lay it on with a trowel Like the Dickens Lily-livered Love is blind Make an ass of yourself Make your hair stand on end Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water Milk of human kindness Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows More fool you More honoured in the breach than in the observance Much Ado about Nothing My salad days Neither a borrower nor a lender be No more cakes and ale? Now is the winter of our discontent O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo Off with his head Oh, that way madness lies Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more Out of the jaws of death Pomp and circumstance Pound of flesh Primrose path Rhyme nor reason Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything Screw your courage to the sticking place Send him packing Set your teeth on edge Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Short shrift Shuffle off this mortal coil Sleep like a top Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em Something is rotten in the state of Denmark Son of a bitch Star crossed lovers Stiffen the sinews Stony hearted Such stuff as dreams are made on The be all and end all The course of true love never did run smooth The crack of doom The Devil incarnate The game is afoot The game is up The quality of mercy is not strained The Queen's English The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on There's method in my madness Thereby hangs a tale This is the short and the long of it This is very midsummer madness This precious stone set in the silver sea, this sceptered isle Though this be madness, yet there is method in it Thus far into the bowels of the land To be or not to be, that is the question To gild refined gold, to paint the lily To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub Too much of a good thing Truth will out Under the greenwood tree Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown Vanish into thin air We few, we happy few, we band of brothers We have seen better days Wear your heart on your sleeve What a piece of work is man What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions Where the bee sucks, there suck I While you live, tell truth and shame the Devil! Who wooed in haste, and means to wed at leisure Wild goose chase
Shakespeare's phrases grouped by play:

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William Shakespeare contributed more phrases and sayings to the English language than any other individual, and most of them are still in daily use. Here's a collection of well-known quotations that are associated with Shakespeare.

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According to Aristotle, a tragedy is a drama that shows us a realistic story about something. The hero of a tragedy has hamartia or commits hamartia (an error, a flaw). This leads to peripeteia, a reversal of fortune, in which everything goes wrong for him.

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Shakespeare Drama Vocabulary Flashcards | Quizlet

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Start studying Shakespeare Drama Vocabulary. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.

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William Shakespeare - Playwright | Mini Bio | BIO

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Types of Elizabethan Entertainment - Elizabethan Sports

Various Sports were played and watched and formed much of Elizabethan Entertainment, especially for the Nobility

Picture of Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabethan Games and Sports - Sports and games which included archery, bowling, dice, hammer-throwing, quarter-staff contests, quoits, skittles and wrestling

Elizabethan Animal Blood Sports - Including Bear and Bull baiting. Dog and Cock fighting

Elizabethan Hunting - Sport followed by the nobility often using dogs

Elizabethan Hawking - Sport followed by the nobility with hawks

Elizabethan Sports Elizabethan Team Sports Elizabethan Team sports gained in popularity during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The team sports were enjoyed by both the players and the spectators. The Elizabethan era was dangerous and violent. Blood sports were enjoyed involving bears, bulls, cocks and dogs - team sports were also rough and violent. Even some card games were played in teams such as 'Ruff and Honors'. And the outcome of team sports contests were subject to heavy gaming and gambling.

The following Elizabethan Sports were played in teams:

Elizabethan Hunting - 'At Force' Hunts were the most strenuous forms of hunting, designed for fit, young and very active men who worked in teams to hunt ferocious wild boars

Elizabethan Tournaments - Tournaments or Tourneys included many team elements. The Melees featured teams of knights fighting on horseback and on foot

Battledore and Shuttlecock - these team sports were the ancestors of modern badminton

Gameball - was a simple but extremely rough and violent football game

Hurling or Shinty - similar to hockey

The section covering Elizabethan Sports includes the following subjects:

Rounders - a bat-and-ball game similar to the modern baseball

Skittles - an ancestor of modern ten-pin bowling

Stoolball - an ancestor of Cricket

Elizabethan Sports

Billiards - A forerunner to the Pool played today

Colf - the ancestor of Golf. The origin of the word golf is believed to be the Dutch word of "colf" meaning "club".The balls consisted of a leather casing, usually made from a bull's hide, soaked in alum and stuffed with softened goose feathers

Horseshoes - throwing horseshoes at a target

Elizabethan Sports
Comprehensive information and additional facts about Elizabethan Sports during the Elizabethan era can be accessed via the above links or the sitemap.

Elizabethan Sports

Elizabethan Sports

Elizabethan Fencing

Tournaments

Games

Elizabethan Team Sports

Individual sports

Elizabethan Blood Sports - Hunting, Bear Baiting, Bull Baiting and Cock fighting

Hawking

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Elizabethan Era - Free Educational Resource. Author Referencing Information
The contents of Alchin, L.K.
Elizabethan Era
e.g. Retrieved May 16 2012 from www.elizabethan-era.org.uk
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Queen Elizabeth's Coat of Arms

Elizabethan Sports

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Types of Elizabethan Entertainment - Elizabethan Sports Various Sports were played and watched and formed much of Elizabethan Entertainment, especially for the Nobility Picture of Queen Elizabeth I Elizabethan Games and Sports - Sports and games which included archery, bowling, dice, hammer-throwing, quarter-staff contests, quoits, skittles and wrestling Elizabethan Animal Blood Sports - Including Bear and Bull baiting.

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Elizabethan England - Crime & Punishment

Elizabethan England and Elizabethan Crime and Punishment - not a happy subject. Violent times. Crimes were met with violent, cruel punishments. Many punishments and executions were witnessed by many hundreds of people. Facts about the different Crime and Punishment of the Nobility, Upper Classes and Lower Classes.

Picture of Queen Elizabeth I

We recommend the following site for Facts and information about Medieval England

Elizabethan England - Elizabethan Executions
Elizabethan England and Elizabethan Executions. The Death Penalty was definitely not an issue during the Elizabethan era, the only question was what form of execution did the person in question deserve. Executions by beheading were considered the least brutal of execution methods and were accorded to important State prisoners or people of noble birth.

The most dreadful punishment of being Hung, Drawn and Quartered was a barbaric form of execution was reserved for the most hated prisoners who had usually been convicted of treason.
Elizabethan England - Elizabethan Tortures
Elizabethan Tortures were excruciatingly painful and violent. Various means of tortures were use to extract confessions for crime. The Rack, the Scavenger's Daughter, the Collar, the Iron Maiden, Branding Irons, the Wheel and Thumbscrews were all excrutiating methods of Elizabethan tortures.

Elizabethan England - Religion - Protestants, Catholics and Jews

The two major religions in Elizabethan England were the Catholic and Protestant religions. The convictions and beliefs in these different religions were so strong that they led to the executions of many adherents to both of these Elizabethan religions. What were the differences between the Catholic and Protestant religion and beliefs in Elizabethan England? How were the Jews perceived in England during the Elizabethan era. How were Catholics and Jews treated in the Elizabethan era?
Elizabethan England - The Poor Law
Society in Elizabethan England was changing and the number of poor people living in abject poverty was increasing. A series of laws was introduced by the English Parliament in 1563, 1572, 1576, 1597 culminating in the 1601 Poor Law designed to make provision for the poor. The poor were divided into three categories - the 'Deserving Poor', the 'Deserving Unemployed' and 'Undeserving Poor' - those who turned to a life of crime or had become beggars.

Elizabethan England

Elizabethan England
The section and era covering Elizabethan England includes the following subjects:
Elizabethan England - Elizabethan Laws
The section covers Tudor and Elizabethan Laws passed during the 1500's. Important dates and details of Laws which effected the every day lives of Elizabethans in england including the 1559 Second Act of Supremacy the 1574 Sumptuary Laws called the 'Statutes of Apparel' and the 1601 Poor Law.
Elizabethan England - Elizabethan Sumptuary Laws
English 1574 Sumptuary Laws were well known by all of the English people. The penalties for violating Sumptuary Laws in England could be harsh - fines, the loss of property, title and even life. Sumptuary Laws were imposed by rulers to curb the expenditure of the people. Such laws might apply to food, beverages, furniture, jewelry and clothing. These Sumptuary Laws, called the Statutes of Apparel, were used to control behaviour and ensure that a specific class structure was maintained in England.

Elizabethan England
Interesting facts and information about life in Elizabethan England. For additional information regarding the Elizabethan era in England please access the Elizabethan Era Sitemap.

Elizabethan England

Crimes and Punishments in England

Executions in England

Tortures in England

Elizabethan Religion in England

Elizabethan Laws in the 1500's England

The 1601 Poor Law in England
1574 Sumptuary Law called the Statutes of Apparel in England

www.elizabethan-era.org.uk are subject to Copyright Laws - the name of the Website Author is Linda Alchin. The referencing protocol is suggested as follows:

Elizabethan Era - Free Educational Resource. Author Referencing Information
The contents of Alchin, L.K.
Elizabethan Era
e.g. Retrieved May 16 2012 from www.elizabethan-era.org.uk
The content of Elizabethan Era is free but solely for educational purposes. Reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research.". We would respectfully direct our visitors to our Elizabethan Era Copyright page and Elizabethan Era Privacy Statement regarding the Terms of Use of this history site, both may be accessed from the links provided at the bottom of this page.

Queen Elizabeth's Coat of Arms

Elizabethan Family Life

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Elizabethan England - Crime & Punishment Elizabethan England and Elizabethan Crime and Punishment - not a happy subject. Violent times. Crimes were met with violent, cruel punishments. Many punishments and executions were witnessed by many hundreds of people. Facts about the different Crime and Punishment of the Nobility, Upper Classes and Lower Classes.

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Who Was William Shakespeare?

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor of the Renaissance era. He was an important member of the King's Men company of theatrical players from roughly 1594 onward.

Known throughout the world, Shakespeare's writings capture the range of human emotion and conflict and have been celebrated for more than 400 years. And yet, the personal life of William Shakespeare is somewhat a mystery.

There are two primary sources that provide historians with an outline of his life. One is his work - the plays, poems and sonnets - and the other is official documentation such as church and court records. However, these provide only brief sketches of specific events in his life and yield little insight into the man himself.

When Was Shakespeare Born?

No birth records exist, but an old church record indicates that a William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as Shakespeare's birthday.

Located about 100 miles northwest of London, during Shakespeare's time Stratford-upon-Avon was a bustling market town along the River Avon and bisected by a country road.

Family

Shakespeare was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. Shakespeare had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund.

Before Shakespeare's birth, his father became a successful merchant and held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. However, records indicate John's fortunes declined sometime in the late 1570s.

Childhood and Education

Scant records exist of Shakespeare's childhood and virtually none regarding his education. Scholars have surmised that he most likely attended the King's New School, in Stratford, which taught reading, writing and the classics.

Being a public official's child, Shakespeare would have undoubtedly qualified for free tuition. But this uncertainty regarding his education has led some to raise questions about the authorship of his work (and even about whether or not Shakespeare really existed).

Wife and Children

Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury Province. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. Shakespeare was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out, pregnant.

Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11.

Shakespeare's Lost Years

There are seven years of Shakespeare's life where no records exist after the birth of his twins in 1585. Scholars call this period the "lost years," and there is wide speculation on what he was doing during this period.

One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire.

It's generally believed he arrived in London in the mid- to late 1580s and may have found work as a horse attendant at some of London's finer theaters, a scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors and playwrights in Hollywood and Broadway.

The King's Men

By the early 1590s, documents show Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, an acting company in London with which he was connected for most of his career.

Considered the most important troupe of its time, the company changed its name to the King's Men following the crowning of King James I in 1603. From all accounts, the King's Men company was very popular. Records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular literature.

Although the theater culture in 16th century England was not highly admired by people of high rank, some of the nobility were good patrons of the performing arts and friends of the actors.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE FACT CARD

Actor and Playwright

By 1592, there is evidence Shakespeare earned a living as an actor and a playwright in London and possibly had several plays produced.

The September 20, 1592 edition of the Stationers' Register (a guild publication) includes an article by London playwright Robert Greene that takes a few jabs at Shakespeare: "...There is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country," Greene wrote of Shakespeare.

Scholars differ on the interpretation of this criticism, but most agree that it was Greene's way of saying Shakespeare was reaching above his rank, trying to match better known and educated playwrights like Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe or Greene himself.

Early in his career, Shakespeare was able to attract the attention of Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his first and second published poems: "Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "The Rape of Lucrece" (1594).

By 1597, Shakespeare had already written and published 15 of his 37 plays. Civil records show that at this time he purchased the second-largest house in Stratford, called New House, for his family.

It was a four-day ride by horse from Stratford to London, so it's believed that Shakespeare spent most of his time in the city writing and acting and came home once a year during the 40-day Lenten period, when the theaters were closed.

Globe Theater

By 1599, Shakespeare and his business partners built their own theater on the south bank of the Thames River, which they called the Globe Theater.

In 1605, Shakespeare purchased leases of real estate near Stratford for 440 pounds, which doubled in value and earned him 60 pounds a year. This made him an entrepreneur as well as an artist, and scholars believe these investments gave him the time to write his plays uninterrupted.

Shakespeare's Writing Style

Shakespeare's early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that didn't always align naturally with the story's plot or characters.

However, Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes and creating a freer flow of words.

With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose.

William Shakespeare: Plays

While it's difficult to determine the exact chronology of Shakespeare's plays, over the course of two decades, from about 1590 to 1613, he wrote a total of 37 plays revolving around several main themes: histories, tragedies, comedies and tragicomedies.

Early Works: Histories and Comedies

With the exception of the tragic love story Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's first plays were mostly histories. Henry VI (Parts I, II and III), Richard II and Henry V dramatize the destructive results of weak or corrupt rulers and have been interpreted by drama historians as Shakespeare's way of justifying the origins of the Tudor Dynasty.

Julius Caesar portrays upheaval in Roman politics that may have resonated with viewers at a time when England's aging monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, had no legitimate heir, thus creating the potential for future power struggles.

Shakespeare also wrote several comedies during his early period: the whimsical A Midsummer Night's Dream, the romantic Merchant of Venice, the wit and wordplay of Much Ado About Nothing and the charming As You Like It and Twelfth Night.

Other plays written before 1600 include Titus Andronicus, The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost, King John, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry V.

Works after 1600: Tragedies and Tragicomedies

It was in Shakespeare's later period, after 1600, that he wrote the tragedies Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. In these, Shakespeare's characters present vivid impressions of human temperament that are timeless and universal.

Possibly the best known of these plays is Hamlet, which explores betrayal, retribution, incest and moral failure. These moral failures often drive the twists and turns of Shakespeare's plots, destroying the hero and those he loves.

In Shakespeare's final period, he wrote several tragicomedies. Among these are Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. Though graver in tone than the comedies, they are not the dark tragedies of King Lear or Macbeth because they end with reconciliation and forgiveness.

Other plays written during this period include All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Timon of Athens, Coriolanus, Pericles and Henry VIII.

When Did Shakespeare Die?

Tradition holds that Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday, April 23, 1616, but some scholars believe this is a myth. Church records show he was interred at Trinity Church on April 25, 1616.

The exact cause of Shakespeare's death is unknown, though many believe he died following a brief illness.

In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna. Though entitled to a third of his estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his "second-best bed." This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favor, or that the couple was not close.

However, there is very little evidence the two had a difficult marriage. Other scholars note that the term "second-best bed" often refers to the bed belonging to the household's master and mistress - the marital bed - and the "first-best bed" was reserved for guests.

Did Shakespeare Write His Own Plays?

About 150 years after his death, questions arose about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Scholars and literary critics began to float names like Christopher Marlowe, Edward de Vere and Francis Bacon - men of more known backgrounds, literary accreditation, or inspiration - as the true authors of the plays.

Much of this stemmed from the sketchy details of Shakespeare's life and the dearth of contemporary primary sources. Official records from the Holy Trinity Church and the Stratford government record the existence of a Shakespeare, but none of these attest to him being an actor or playwright.

Skeptics also questioned how anyone of such modest education could write with the intellectual perceptiveness and poetic power that is displayed in Shakespeare's works. Over the centuries, several groups have emerged that question the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.

The most serious and intense skepticism began in the 19th century when adoration for Shakespeare was at its highest. The detractors believed that the only hard evidence surrounding Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon described a man from modest beginnings who married young and became successful in real estate.

Members of the Shakespeare Oxford Society (founded in 1957) put forth arguments that English aristocrat and poet Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the poems and plays of "William Shakespeare."

The Oxfordians cite de Vere's extensive knowledge of aristocratic society, his education, and the structural similarities between his poetry and that found in the works attributed to Shakespeare. They contend that Shakespeare had neither the education nor the literary training to write such eloquent prose and create such rich characters.

However, the vast majority of Shakespearean scholars contend that Shakespeare wrote all his own plays. They point out that other playwrights of the time also had sketchy histories and came from modest backgrounds.

They contend that Stratford's New Grammar School curriculum of Latin and the classics could have provided a good foundation for literary writers. Supporters of Shakespeare's authorship argue that the lack of evidence about Shakespeare's life doesn't mean his life didn't exist. They point to evidence that displays his name on the title pages of published poems and plays.

Examples exist of authors and critics of the time acknowledging Shakespeare as the author of plays such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors and King John.

Royal records from 1601 show that Shakespeare was recognized as a member of the King's Men theater company and a Groom of the Chamber by the court of King James I, where the company performed seven of Shakespeare's plays.

There is also strong circumstantial evidence of personal relationships by contemporaries who interacted with Shakespeare as an actor and a playwright.

Literary Legacy

What seems to be true is that Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts who wrote plays and acted in some in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. But his reputation as a dramatic genius wasn't recognized until the 19th century.

Beginning with the Romantic period of the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for Shakespeare and his work reached its height. In the 20th century, new movements in scholarship and performance have rediscovered and adopted his works.

Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and reinterpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. The genius of Shakespeare's characters and plots are that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England.

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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor of the Renaissance era. He was an important member of the King's Men company of theatrical players from roughly 1594 onward. Known throughout the world, Shakespeare's writings capture the range of human emotion and conflict and have been celebrated for more than 400 years.

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Next time you're at the local bar's quiz night, and the question has something to do with state birds, guess cardinal. That is, if you're otherwise unsure. Seven U.S. states use the cardinal for their representative plumed pal. Seven out of fifty odds isn't bad for a guess.

Likewise, if you're trying to guess who made up a certain word or phrase, guess William Shakespeare. The chances aren't quite seven out of fifty, but they're probably close. A quick internet search will turn up plenty of helpful lists of words and phrases invented by Shakespeare. Seriously, try it. We're not sending you on some hopeless pursuit. In fact, since we're feeling giving, and because you can always use more nice stuff, we offer you a starter guide with our own idiosyncratic take.

Or, in the Bard's words, we should say: we're not sending you on a wild goose chase, andsince we're feeling generous, and because you can't have too much of a good thing, we offer you a starter guide with our own zany take.

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A Starter Guide to Phrases Coined by Shakespeare

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Next time you're at the local bar's quiz night, and the question has something to do with state birds, guess cardinal. That is, if you're otherwise unsure. Seven U.S. states use the cardinal for their representative plumed pal. Seven out of fifty odds isn't bad for a guess.