Skip to content
Vinony

Shakespeare

proper noun

  1. family name
  2. English playwright
L481798 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈʃeɪkspɪɹ/ / /ˈʃeɪkspɪə/ / /ˈʃɛjkspɪː/

name

Etymology: A common Middle English surname meaning spearman, corresponding to shake (“to brandish a weapon”) + spear.

  1. A surname.

    “The name Shakespeare occurs from the 13th century on in the records of various English counties. The first Shakespeare as yet discovered in Warwickshire is one Thomas, a felon, who fled from the law in 1359. Toward the end of the fourteenth century there were landed Shakespeares at Baddesley, and this family held its own into the sixteenth.”

  2. A surname.
  3. William Shakespeare's works or media adaptations of his works.

    “He is reading Shakespeare.”

    “I'm surprised that even the allusion to Hamlet flew over his head. Even someone who barely knows Shakespeare might catch that one!”

  4. A place name:
  5. A place name:

noun

Etymology: A common Middle English surname meaning spearman, corresponding to shake (“to brandish a weapon”) + spear.

  1. Any form or style of language that is eloquent, especially in English; poetry.

    “This may not be poetry, but in competition with "Ryan has good velocity and excellent location" it is pure Shakespeare.”

  2. A playwright of the standing of William Shakespeare.

    “Caine, he said, might be a budding Shakespeare but in Shakespeare's time all it took to put on a play was a barn, a crude stage, […]”

verb

Etymology: A common Middle English surname meaning spearman, corresponding to shake (“to brandish a weapon”) + spear.

  1. To act or perform in a play of the works of Shakespeare.