Words that Shakespeare Coined
Did you know that gloom was originally a verb? Yeah, neither did I. 😉 It’s apparently a Scottish word that originally meant “to look sullen or displeased,” dating from the 14th century. Well, in the late 1500s, Shakespeare got ahold of it; around this same time it also began to be used as a noun for “a sullen look,” and Shakespeare then added that -y to the end and created the adjective. He used it twice, first in Henry VI, Part 1 (“…but darkness and the gloomy shade of death environ you”) and then in Titus Andronicus (“the ruthless, vast, and gloomy woods”).
It’s interesting to note that the original meanings of both the noun and the verb gloom applied directly to people and their attitudes, but Shakespeare used his adjective metaphorically, to describe a forest and death. This is perhaps what led the way for gloomy and gloom to mean “dark/ness” rather than just “sullen.”
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.