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 […]
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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 […]
Read morequeasy (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 […]
Read moremischief (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’ […]
Read morehope (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 […]
Read moreadmiration (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 […]
Read morecareful (adjective) ‘taking care, showing care’ The original sense dates from Old English – ‘full of care’ – and this is the primary sense in Shakespeare. It means ‘anxious, worried’ when Queen Isabel says of York: ‘full of careful business are his looks! (Richard II, II.ii.75), when Wolsey describes Buckingham’s Surveyor as a ‘careful subject’ […]
Read moreadventure (noun) ‘dangerous, risky, or exciting undertaking’ The modern meanings were around in Shakespeare’s time, but lacking the modern dramatic nuance we find when referring to adventure comics, adventure stories, and the like. Most Shakespearian uses have a more general sense of ‘venture, enterprise’ or the outcome of a venture. When Hotspur talks of ‘the […]
Read moredogged (adj.) ‘tenacious, persistent’ The word has rather a nice sound today: anyone who is doing something ‘doggedly’ is surely to be praised for not giving up. But this sense has been around only since the mid-18th century. The original use, from the 14th century, expressed the fiercer canine qualities. Shakespeare uses the word just […]
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want (verb) ‘desire, wish, need, require’ Most of the meanings of want found in Shakespeare are still in use today; but there is an inevitable tendency to read in the primary modern meaning – the positive sense of ‘desire’ – in contexts where it does not work. It is the negative sense, of ‘lack, be […]
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