Shakespeare invented over 1,700 words still used in English today
William Shakespeare is credited with coining or first recording over 1,700 words in the English language, including: bedroom, lonely, generous, obscene, gloomy, radiance, rant, swagger, worthless, eyeball, lackluster, and bedroom. Whether he truly invented them or simply wrote them down before anyone else is debated — he may have borrowed from spoken dialects. But his texts provide the earliest written evidence for hundreds of common words that now feel indispensable.
We use these words every day without knowing we're borrowing from one person's vocabulary. 'Bedroom' and 'lonely' feel so fundamental to English that discovering they were coined (or first written) by a single playwright feels impossible.
“Shakespeare invented over 1,700 words still in use today — including 'bedroom', 'lonely', 'generous', 'obscene', and 'swagger'. You quote him daily without knowing it. 📜 #OddlyHuman”