Most of us quote Shakespeare every day without even knowing it. “Foregone conclusion”, “one fell swoop” and “good riddance” are just a few examples. Have a look at this really long list of phrases originally coined by Shakespeare himself – you will be surprised at how many you know and probably use.
- A countenance more in sorrow than in anger
- A Daniel come to judgement
- A dish fit for the gods
- A fool’s paradise
- A foregone conclusion
- A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse
- A ministering angel shall my sister be
- A plague on both your houses
- A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
- A sea change
- A sorry sight
- Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety
- Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio
- All corners of the world
- All one to me
- All that glitters is not gold / All that glisters is not gold
- All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players
- All’s well that ends well
- An ill-favoured thing sir, but mine own
- And shining morning face, creeping like a snail unwillingly to school
- And thereby hangs a tale
- As cold as any stone
- As dead as a doornail
- As good luck would have it
- As merry as the day is long
- As pure as the driven snow
- At one fell swoop
- Bag and baggage
- Beast with two backs
- Beware the ides of March
- Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks
- Brevity is the soul of wit
- But screw your courage to the sticking-place
- But, for my own part, it was Greek to me
- Come the three corners of the world in arms
- Come what come may
- Comparisons are odorous
- Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war
- Dash to pieces
- Discretion is the better part of valour
- Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn, and cauldron bubble
- Eaten out of house and home
- Et tu, Brute
- Even at the turning of the tide
- Exceedingly well read
- Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog
- Fair play
- Fancy free
- Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man
- Fight fire with fire
- For ever and a day
- Frailty, thy name is woman
- Foul play
- Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears
- Good men and true
- Good riddance
- Green eyed monster
- Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings
- He will give the Devil his due
- Heart’s content
- High time
- His beard was as white as snow
- Hoist by your own petard
- Hot-blooded
- Household words
- How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child
- I bear a charmed life
- I have not slept one wink
- I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips
- I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
- If music be the food of love, play on
- In a pickle
- In my mind’s eye, Horatio
- In stitches
- In the twinkling of an eye
- Is this a dagger which I see before me?
- It beggar’d all description
- It is meat and drink to me
- Lay it on with a trowel
- Lie low
- Like the Dickens
- Love is blind
- Make your hair stand on end
- Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water
- Milk of human kindness
- Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows
- More fool you
- More honoured in the breach than in the observance
- Much Ado about Nothing
- My salad days
- Neither a borrower nor a lender be
- Night owl
- No more cakes and ale?
- Now is the winter of our discontent
- O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo
- Off with his head
- Oh, that way madness lies
- Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more
- Out of the jaws of death
- Pound of flesh
- Primrose path
- Rhyme nor reason
- Salad days
- Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything
- Screw your courage to the sticking place
- Send him packing
- Set your teeth on edge
- Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
- Short shrift
- Shuffle off this mortal coil
- Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep
- Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em
- Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
- Star crossed lovers
- Stiffen the sinews
- Stony hearted
- Such stuff as dreams are made on
- The course of true love never did run smooth
- The crack of doom
- The Devil incarnate
- The game is afoot
- The game is up
- The quality of mercy is not strained
- The Queen’s English
- The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
- The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on
- There’s method in my madness
- Thereby hangs a tale
- This is the short and the long of it
- This is very midsummer madness
- This precious stone set in the silver sea, this sceptered isle
- Though this be madness, yet there is method in it
- Thus far into the bowels of the land
- To be or not to be, that is the question
- To gild refined gold, to paint the lily
- To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub
- Too much of a good thing
- Truth will out
- Under the greenwood tree
- Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown
- Up in arms
- Vanish into thin air
- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
- We have seen better days
- Wear your heart on your sleeve
- What a piece of work is man
- What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
- When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions
- Where the bee sucks, there suck I
- While you live, tell truth and shame the Devil!
- Who wooed in haste, and means to wed at leisure
- Wild goose chase
- Woe is me
