Phrases Coined By Shakespeare

Antony and Cleopatra

  • Salad days



As You Like It

  • In a better world than this
  • Forever and a day
  • Too much of a good thing
  • Neither rhyme nor reason
  • Seen better days
  • It is but so-so

Comedy of Errors

  • 'Tis high time
  • Something in the wind

Cymbeline

  • Not slept one wink
  • The game is up

Hamlet

  • Neither a borrower nor a lender be
  • Brevity is the soul of wit
  • In my heart of hearts
  • In my mind's eye
  • Infinite space
  • Murder most foul
  • Though this be madness, yet there is method in it
  • Own flesh and blood
  • Witching time of night
  • Trippingly on the tongue
  • This mortal coil
  • Sweets to the sweet
  • Sick at heart

Henry IV (I and II)

  • Eaten me out of house and home
  • Stony hearted
  • Set my teeth on edge
  • The world's my oyster
  • Give the devil his due
  • The game is afoot
  • Send packing

Henry V

  • Devil incarnate (also in Titus Andronicus)
  • Heart of gold
  • Household words

Henry VI (I, II, and III)

  • Faint hearted
  • Dead as a doornail
  • Breathed his last

Henry VIII

  • For goodness' sake

Julius Caesar

  • A dish fit for the gods
  • It was Greek to me
  • Itching palm
  • Lean and hungry look
  • Live long day

King John

  • Play fast and loose

King Lear

  • Full circle
  • More sinned against than sinning

Love's Labour's Lost

  • Naked truth

Macbeth

  • Be-all and the end-all
  • Knock knock! Who's there?
  • What's done is done
  • One fell swoop
  • A sorry sight
  • Something wicked this way comes

The Merchant of Venice

  • All that glitters is not gold
  • Truth will out
  • Bated breath
  • Love is blind

The Merry Wives of Windsor

  • As good luck would have it
  • Laughing stock
  • The short and the long of it
  • What the dickens

A Midsummer Night's Dream

  • Fancy-free

Much Ado About Nothing

  • Lie low

Othello

  • Foregone conclusion
  • Pomp and circumstance
  • One that loved not wisely but too well
  • Wear my heart upon my sleeve
  • Jealousy is the green-eyed monster

Richard II

  • Spotless reputation

Romeo and Juliet

  • Fool's paradise
  • Star-crossed lovers
  • Wild-goose chase

The Taming of the Shrew

  • Break the ice
  • Kill with kindness
  • Cold comfort
  • Refuse to budge an inch (also in Measure for Measure)

The Tempest

  • In a pickle
  • Melted into thin air

Troilus and Cressida

  • Good riddance
  • Snail paced

Twelfth Night

  • Improbable fiction
  • Laugh yourself into stitches
  • Out of the jaws of death

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

  • As a nose on a man's face