baffle (verb) ‘defeat efforts, frustrate plans’ When people are baffled, these days, they are at a mental loss, unable to work out what is going on – a state of mind that applies as much to frustrated detectives as to crossword-puzzle solvers. It is a sense which developed in the 17th century. In Shakespeare’s time, […]

gender (noun) ‘grammatical class; social notion of sex’ The grammatical sense of this word goes back to the early Middle Ages, but the sociological sense is a 20th-century development. The grammatical use is to be found in The Merry Wives of Windsor (IV.i.65), where Evans condemns Mistress Page for having no understanding of ‘the cases […]

jet (verb) ‘spout forcefully; travel by jet’ The sense of speed associated with this word does not arrive in English until the mid-17th century. For Shakespeare, the verb had only one meaning: ‘strut, swagger’ – the original meaning that arrived from Latin, perhaps via French, in the 15th century. This is the sense required when […]

passport (n.) ‘document authorizing foreign travel’ This word came to be increasingly used in its present-day meanings during the 16th century, as people increasingly travelled abroad. But Shakespeare uses the word differently. When Cerimon opens a chest washed up on shore and discovers Thaisa’s body, he exclaims ‘A passport too!’ (Pericles, III.ii.64). As Thaisa was […]

timorous (adjective) ‘easily frightened, lacking in confidence’ When this word came into English, in the fifteenth century, it was immediately used in two diametrically opposed senses: ‘feeling fear’ and ‘causing fear’. Only the former sense is found today. Shakespeare uses the word half-a-dozen times, usually in the same way as we do now, as when […]

queasy (adjective) ‘unsettled, easily upset (especially of stomachs), uneasy, scrupulous (especially of consciences)’ We should think of Shakespeare whenever we feel nauseous, because Agrippa’s reference to Rome being ‘queasy’ with Antony’s insolence is the first recorded use of the modern sense (Antony and Cleopatra III.vi.20). There’s a similar use in Much Ado About Nothing, when […]

mischief (n.) ‘petty annoyance, vexatious behaviour’ The modern use, since the late 17th century, suggests a minor kind of aberrant behaviour, often without intentional ill-will. But when the word first entered English, around 1300, it was quite the reverse. When Joan harangues her captors with ‘mischief and despair / Drive you to break your necks’ […]

hope (verb) ‘entertain a desired expectation’ Today’s strongly positive meaning dates from Anglo-Saxon times, but in the 13th century an alternative usage emerged which lacked the sense of desire, and this was still present in Shakespeare’s day. This new sense was more matter-of-fact, meaning ‘expect’ or ‘envisage’. Without being aware of it, we cannot make […]

admiration (noun) ‘delighted or astonished approval’ The wonder we feel in modern usage is entirely to do with approval: we are pleased or gratified by what we see, even to the point of wanting to emulate it. This sense had developed by Shakespeare’s time, but the first use of this word, when it arrived in […]