by Kevin Burton
Today we continue a sampling of words and phrases coined by William Shakespeare compiled by the Dictionary Scoop website. Five words and phrases Sunday, five more today.
The first one on today’s list is a good description of me. The last one is a word I am sure you thought sprang from social media:
Five more from Shakespeare, via Dictionary Scoop:
6–Night Owl
Do you consider yourself a nocturnal person? Someone who prefers to be active at night rather than during the day? If so, you are probably a night owl!
But did you know that Shakespeare was the first to use the expression figuratively to describe people keen on nightlife?
In classical literature, the owl was an animal with negative connotations and was typically associated with bad omens. In Shakespeare’s plays, they appear frequently, usually to announce that something bad is about to happen. However, in the narrative poem “The Rape of Lucrece,” the night owl refers directly to a person: “The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch: / Thus treason works ere traitors be espied.”
We’ve all felt a bit like a night owl at one time or another, but fortunately, nowadays the expression doesn’t carry that negative connotation.
7–Bandit
Shakespeare’s fascination with Italy is well known. Renaissance literature was profoundly influenced by the ideas, styles, and themes that emerged in Italy during this period. In the case of Shakespeare, the Italian influence is evident in the settings, themes, characters, and language of his plays.
In the same way that the author recovered terms and expressions from Old English, he also adapted words from other languages that were later incorporated into the popular lexicon. This is the case of the word bandit, which derives from the Italian bandito and literally means “one who is banished,” referring to an outlaw who lives by stealing and other misdeeds. The first written record of bandit can be found in the play Timon of Athens.
8–Green-Eyed Monster
Jealousy is a common human emotion that can eat away at a person. Literature has dealt with this topic in many ways, and Shakespeare is one of the authors who has done it most brilliantly.
In fact, he coined a term to describe people who suffer from such deep jealousy that they can cause harm to others and themselves: the “Green-Eyed Monster.”
In The Merchant of Venice, The Bard had already linked the color green with envy when Portia says: “And shudd’ring fear, and green-eyed jealousy!” Then, in Othello, the arch-villain Iago warns the protagonist, who is blind with jealousy over his wife Desdemona’s alleged affair with Cassio: “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on.”
9–Jessica
William Shakespeare not only invented words, turned nouns into verbs, and added prefixes, but he’s also credited with having coined a few female names that are still very popular today. Miranda, Olivia, Cordelia, and Imogen are just some of them.
This is also the case with Jessica, who first appears in The Merchant of Venice as the rebellious daughter of Shylock. As was his habit, it is believed that the author anglicized a biblical name from the Old Testament —possibly 𝘠𝘪𝘴𝘬á𝘩. Some years later, in the late 18th century, people in Britain began naming their daughters Jessica after the Shakespearean character. Fast forward to this day, the name has crossed the pond, and chances are you have a friend or cousin named Jessica.
10–Unfriend
Shakespeare loved to play with language: he invented words, redefined others, and gave new life to thousands of forgotten terms and expressions. As far as we know he especially liked to add the prefix un-. He created or gave new meanings to more than 300 words that begin with it, such as unaware, unreal, uncomfortable, and undress.
One of the most curious words in this group is unfriend.
Although the word already existed, it had not been used as a verb before the 17th century. The English author includes it in several of his works to refer to someone who has been left alone, without friends.
For example, it appears in the romantic comedy Twelfth Night and King Lear: “Will you, with those infirmities she owes, / Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate.”
In the 21st century, the term had a revival with the advent of Facebook. Shakespeare could never have imagined the rise of social media, but he would surely be happy that his contributions to language are still relevant today.
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