shakespearean
/ʃeɪkˈspɪəɹi.ən/
shakespearean means of or pertaining to, characteristic of, associated with, or suggestive of William Shakespeare (an English playwright), his works, or his authorship, or the time in which he lived.
shakespearean is pronounced /ʃeɪkˈspɪəɹi.ən/.
Why “shakespearean” is a great word
Pertaining to or characteristic of the works, style, or era of William Shakespeare. From the surname Shakespeare (of the playwright William Shakespeare) + the adjectival suffix -ean, meaning "of or pertaining to." Unlike "Elizabethan," which encompasses an entire age's politics and culture, or "Jacobean," which denotes a later period's specific, darker complexities, Shakespearean describes a universe of language and feeling contained within a single imaginative consciousness. It is the specific heft of a skull in a gravedigger's hand, the glint of a dagger imagined so precisely the hand twitches, and the fool who speaks truth only when disguised as nonsense—the ghost of a single imagination, still pacing the stage of the modern mind.
Etymology
From Shakespeare + -ean.
adj
- Of or pertaining to, characteristic of, associated with, or suggestive of William Shakespeare (an English playwright), his works, or his authorship, or the time in which he lived.
- Derivative of Shakespeare's works or authorship.
- Composed of Shakespearean sonnets.
name
- Shakespearean English.e.g.“I have had no one to talk to for ages. There’s Ma, who only talks in Shakespearean. And it took me ages to learn that and I still don’t understand the whole thing.” — 2019, Inaaya Mahek, “Sarkine”, in Cassy & the Bathroom People, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leicestershire: Matador, →ISBN, part 2, page 183:
noun
- A scholar of the works of Shakespeare.
- A person trained to act in Shakespeare's plays.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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