Shakespeare’s False Friends 32: queasy

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 […]

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Friday False Friends 28: careful

careful (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’ […]

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