Where it’s found: The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene I
How it’s used:
SALARINO: Now, by two-headed Janus,
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes
And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper,
And other of such vinegar aspect
That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
Where it comes from: I find it very… laughable that one of Shakespeare’s problem plays coined the term laughable. (What, you don’t come here for my incredibly lame puns? I am agog, aghast, and other sorts of fancy words!)
With that out of the way, laughable is a compound, made up of two parts: laugh and the prefix -able.
Laugh is Old English, and was originally onomatopoetic. The Anglo-Saxon word for laugh was hlæhhan. This is related to a number of other Germanic words that look like someone just hit their keyboard in an attempt to coin a word. The pronunciation was originally lack, but here we are with our yuck-yuck word laff. [source]
-able, on the other hand, came to us from the Romans; Latin had two suffixes for words that meant “a capacity to do,” -ibilis and -abilis. Interestingly enough, in English native words get tagged with the suffix -able (hence, laughable), while more obviously Latin words get stuck with -ible (e.g., horrible, crucible, etc.) [source]
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: Henry VI, Part 3, Act I, Scene I
How it’s used:
CLIFFORD: Urge it no more; lest that, instead of words,
I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger
As shall revenge his death before I stir.
WARWICK: Poor Clifford! how I scorn his worthless threats!
Where it comes from: Despite some scholar’s opinions on Henry VI (not the most interesting of Shakespeare’s plays), it’s certainly not a worthless play, because it gave us… well, the word worthless.
I’ve actually covered the origins of both parts of this word before. Worthless is made up of two parts (bonus points if you can guess what they are), so this will mostly just be review. But here we are anyway:
Worth comes from the other granddaddy of English, Anglo-Saxon. They had a word, weorð, which meant “equal in value to.” It’s (probably) descended from an Indo-European form that is also the root of the word versus. [source]
[Less] means lacking, and it comes from Old English -leas. Other Germanic languages have similar terms (-loos in Dutch, -los in German, etc.) [source]
Review day is review day. And also Tuesday.
Where it’s found: Cymbeline, Act III, Scene III
How it’s used:
ARVIRAGUS: What should we speak of
When we are old as you? when we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December, how,
In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse
The freezing hours away?
Where it comes from: It’s cold out today where I am, despite the fact that it’s almost May, so this feels like an appropriate Shakespeare Word of the Day.
So. Freezing. It’s Old English, and it comes from the word freosan, which meant “turn to ice.” Like most Old English words, it has cousins in other Germanic languages, ultimately going all the way back to proto-Indo-European. The root for freezing is, weirdly enough, used in some languages for the word “to burn.” So while Sanskrit and Latin had words like prusva and pruina for “hoarfrost,” they had very similar words for burning things. (Sanskrit had prustah for “burnt,” and Latin had pruna, for “a live coal.”) [source]
Where it’s found: Lots of places.
How it’s used:
Here are just a few examples. From Troilus and Cressida, Act IV, Scene V:
MENELAUS: I had a good argument for kissing once.
PATROCLUS: But that’s no argument for kissing now.
Here’s As You Like It, Act IV, Scene IV:
ROSALIND: And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.
Here’s one from Mark Antony’s deathbed in Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV, Scene XV:
CLEOPATRA: And welcome, welcome! die where thou hast lived:
Quicken with kissing: had my lips that power,
Thus would I wear them out.
Where it comes from: Shakespeare was the first English writer to use the participle kissing, though it was probably a word that was already in use when he wrote. Still, give the guy some credit for taking the trouble to write it down.
The Angles and the Saxons gave us the word we use for kissing. Their word, cyssan, meant “to kiss.” Plenty of other Germanic languages have similar words (the Germans have küssen, the Norwegians and the Danes have kysse, and the Swedes have kyssa), but there’s no common Indo-European root. The noun form of the word, in Old English at least, was coss, which eventually became cuss, which in turn became kiss. [source]
Shakespeare: all about the smoochin’.
Where it’s found: Titus Andronicus, Act V, Scene III
How it’s used:
MARCUS ANDRONICUS: Tear for tear, and loving kiss for kiss,
Thy brother Marcus tenders on thy lips:
O were the sum of these that I should pay
Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them!
Where it comes from: Titus Andronicus is probably Shakespeare’s first tragedy, written sometime between 1588 and 1590, and it is also one of his bloodiest. It was popular in his lifetime, but as time wore on it grew to become less respected than his other works. So I guess you could say it’s one of his…countless bloodstained works. (Yes, I did just use twoof the Bard’s coined words in one sentence. I’m moving at a thought a minute here, try and keep up.)
Countless is made of two parts. Count comes from Old French, where they used conter to mean “to add up,” but also “to tell a story.” It is ultimately derived from the Latin word computare, which is the root of the word computer. Interestingly enough, the verb has a completely different origin than the noun, i.e., the title of nobility. [source]
I’ve covered the origins of the suffix -less before, but for review:
it means lacking, and it comes from Old English -leas. Other Germanic languages have similar terms (-loos in Dutch, -los in German, etc.) [source]
Where it’s found: Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act II, Scene I
How it’s used:
FERDINAND: But say that he or we, as neither have,
Received that sum, yet there remains unpaid
A hundred thousand more; in surety of the which,
One part of Aquitaine is bound to us,
Although not valued to the money’s worth.
Where it comes from: There’s no real interesting anecdote about the origins of this phrase, so I’ll just look at where the individual words come from.
Money arrived in English in the late 13th century as an Old French word, moneie, which was borrowed from a Latin word, moneta. Moneta was actually a title of the Roman goddess Juno, in whose temples money was coined. [source]
Worth comes from the other granddaddy of English, Anglo-Saxon. They had a word, weorð, which meant “equal in value to.” It’s (probably) descended from an Indo-European form that is also the root of the word versus. [source]
Where it’s found: Hamlet, Act III, Scene IV
How it’s used:
HAMLET: There’s letters seal’d: and my two schoolfellows,
Whom I will trust as I will adders fang’d,
They bear wthe mandate; they must sweep my way,
And marshal me to knavery.
Where it comes from: Shakespeare was the first writer to use the word fanged, even in his endearing and abbreviated fashion.
Fang comes from Old English. In that language, it meant the same thing as “prey, spoils, plunder, or booty,”i.e., some kind of treasure that was taken. It comes from a word, gefangen, which meant “seize,” “take,” or “capture.”
Interestingly enough, this word is connected to a Germanic root, fango-, and appears in a lot of other Germanic languages, ultimately coming from an Indo-European word, pag-, meaning “to fix.” This is related to the Latin word pax, meaning “peace.” So the word for the venomous tooth of a snake is a cousin to the word peace.
Perhaps that is why the loveable, drooling Fang from Harry Potter is so named.
Where it’s found: Antony and Cleopatra, Act 3, Scene 13
How it’s used:
CLEOPATRA: Ah, dear, if I be so,
From my cold heart let heaven engender hail,
And poison it in the source; and the first stone
Drop in my neck: as it determines, so
Dissolve my life! The next Caesarion smite!
Where it comes from: Old English had a similar term, cealdheort, which meant “cruel.” Both of its elements — ceald, for cold, and heort, for heart, come from Old English, and have roots in plenty of other Germanic languages.
Cleopatra could be pretty coldhearted. The Greeks snidely called her Meriochane, meaning “she who gapes wide for ten-thousand men.” (If you’re not old enough to understand what that means, please ask an adult.) Subtlety was a strong suit of the inhabitants of Antiquity. It is fitting, though, that the woman who shacked up with Julius Caesar in an attempt to overthrow her brother/husband in Egypt, and who backed the wrong horse in the Roman civil war following Caesar’s death, coined the term “coldhearted” in Shakespeare’s works.
When he said it: Bentonville, Arkansas, November 6, 2000
What he said:
GOVERNOR GEORGE W. BUSH: They misunderestimated me.
Where it comes from: Misunderestimate filled a lexical cap in the English language, a brilliant move by then-candidate George W. Bush. Obviously such a coinage, made by cobbling together several prefixes and preexisting words, has a complex etymology, so let’s take a look at it.
Mis- as a prefix comes from Old English, with strong roots in the Germanic language family. It actually is related to the word mutable, because its original meaning was “difference.” [source]
Underestimate’s two parts come from two different languages. Under comes from Old English, which spelled the word the same way; it’s Indo-European connections relate it to a lot of words that sound quite different, though. Sanskrit had adhah, Avestan had a prefix of athara-, and even Latin’s infernus comes from the same root. [source]
Estimate comes from Latin, where they had aestimatus. The word’s noun form, aestimare, is the source of the word “esteem.” [source]
See, one neologism coined by George W. Bush that the Angles and Saxons, the Romans, the Zoroastrians, and the people of India played a part of. How cultured!
