Where it’s found: As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII
How it’s used:
JACQUES: Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Where it comes from: This particular monologue is also where English gained the word puking. It’s a favorite of mine, and probably one of Shakespeare’s most famous.
Eventful was definitively a Shakespeare word; there’s no record of it being used other than in As You Like It until it cropped up in the dictionary. It comes from two words (obviously), event and the suffix -ful.
Event meandered its way into English from Middle French and Latin, where the word was eventus. It meant “an occurrence or accident” but also “fortune” and “fate.” It’s a stem of the word evenire, “to come out, happen, or result,” which is also the root of the word venue. [source]
The suffix -ful is, surprisingly or not, derived from the word full. It’s Old English, where it meant “completely, perfect, entire, utter,” and also “full.” It’s Indo-European roots also means the word is related to the word plenary. [source]
Where it’s found: Cymbeline, Act IV, Scene IV
How it’s used:
ARVIRAGUS: It is not likely
That when they hear the Roman horses neigh,
Behold their quarter’d fires, have botht heir eyes
And ears so cloy’d importantly as now,
That they will wast their time upon our note,
To know from whence we are.
Where it comes from: Importantly arrived in Shakespeare’s lexicon thanks to the French: Middle French had the word important, which came from a Latin word, importare. It meant “to bring in.” It should come as no surprise to you that this word is also the root of the word import. [source]
Incidentally, Shakespeare pioneered the usage of import, in the sense of “consequential” or “important,” which is less common to its definition today of goods brought in from a foreign country.
Where it’s found: Richard III, Act I, Scene I
How it’s used:
GLOUCESTER: Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Where it comes from: Richard III has, in my opinion, the strongest opening lines of any Shakespearean play. How can you beat that powerful statement? Mitt Romney could learn a thing or two about giving a good speech if he started off in powerful tones like Richard did in Shakespeare.
The Bard did not invent the word discontent. It had been in use as a verb before he got his hands on it. But he was the first writer to use it as a noun, which it is (arguably) used as more today than a verb. So let’s look at where it comes from.
I’ve covered the prefix dis- before, so we’re only going to look at the second element of this compound, content. Middle French had a word, contenter, that meant “satisfied.” This came from the Latin contentus, which meant “contained.” The meaning shifted from meaning contained to satisfied because a contented person’s desires are bound by what they already have. [source]
Where it’s found: Much Ado About Nothing, Act V, Scene II
How it’s used:
BENEDICK: I mean in singing; but in loving, Leander the good
swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and
a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mangers,
whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a
blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned
over and over as my poor self in love.
Where it comes from: Today’s Shakespeare word-of-the-day feels appropriate, seeing as how I have just begun to submit my resumé to potential employers. So I’ve decided to explore the origin of the term.
Employer takes a somewhat circuitous route into English, in that it is obviously related to the word employ, which in turn comes from the word… employer. (To be fair, it’s French this time.) In Middle French it meant “make use of” or “apply,” and came from the Latin word implicare, which meant “to be connected with.” Imply is another descendent of this Latin word, and in fact retains more of the original meaning than employ does. [source]
So thank you, Shakespeare, for Michael Scott, who has had a lot of fun with employing and implying.
Where it’s found: Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act III, Scene I
How it’s used:
BIRON: I, that have been love’s whip;
A very beadle to a humorous sigh;
A critic, nay, a night-watch constable;
A domineering pedant o’er the boy;
Than whom no mortal so magnificent!
Where it comes from: They say everyone’s a critic, and Shakespeare certainly endured some in his day (he was famously called an “upstart crow” by a jealous and more established playwright), but he had the last laugh when he brought into English the term for… well, critics.
Critic has a fairly straightforward etymology: it comes from the Middle French word critique, which in turn arrived in the language of Charlemagne from the Latin criticus. Criticus hopped over from the Hellenic peoples, being derived from the Greek word kritikos, “able to make judgments.” This one came from the Greek word krinein, meaning “to separate” or “to decide,” which is also the root of the word crisis. [source]
