What Did Shakespeare Mean By That? Quiz

Answer: Luxury

Luxury indeed used to mean "lechery" - one example is in "Hamlet", where the ghost pleads with his son to "not let the royal bed of Denmark be a couch for luxury and damned incest." In "Titus Andronicus", news that the empress Tamora bore her lover a son was met with "O most insatiate and luxurious woman," both of which are references to lust and not "luxury" as we know it today.

Answer: Nice

"Nice" isn't so nice in Shakespeare - one example of the archaic usage is in "Julius Caesar", where Cassius complains to Brutus that "in such times as these it is not meet that every nice offense should bear his comment," meaning that any little, trivial infraction shouldn't be harshly punished. It is not a "nice" offense in the way we use the word today.

Answer: Annoy

The word "annoy" has a much harsher connotation in Shakespeare's writings, including one example from Julius Caesar where someone mentioned that a lion walked past "without annoying me," and Cassius refers to Antony's abilities as being sufficient to "annoy us all." This means that the lion did not *harm* the first speaker and that Cassius feels threatened, not what we'd consider "annoyed". by Antony.

Answer: Minion

"Minion" is used very often in Shakespeare and contemporary writings, and it doesn't quite conjure up an evil henchman so much as a favored lover. The context is still possibly negative but not strictly "evil" as much as it is today. In "Henry IV Part I", Shakespeare has the king refer to a rebellious soldier as "sweet Fortune's minion," meaning that Fortune has loved and favored him.

Answer: Happy

"Happy" used to be a lot more about luck, although today's meaning does pop up in Shakespeare occasionally as well. When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern talk with Hamlet on their arrival in Act 2 of "Hamlet", they say that they are "happy in that they are not over-happy, on Fortune's cap [they] are not the very button".

This refers to their somewhat *fortunate* state, but does not speak to their own sense of well-being, simply their circumstances.

Answer: Awful

"Awful" comes from "awe", and if something is awful, it inspires awe and reverent fear. It can also mean "full of awe", so both the person inspiring the awe and the one feeling it can be described as "awful". In "Richard II", the king, upon seeing a man refusing to kneel, says, "how dare thy joints forget/To pay their awful duty to our presence?"

Answer: Excrement

"Excrement" still means things that come out of the body, but in Shakespeare's time it meant things like hair and nails - decidedly more sanitary. When Gertrude, Hamlet's mother, notices that her son's hair is standing up, she says, "Your bedded hair, like life in excrements/Starts up, and stands on end."

Answer: Prodigy

"Prodigies" are scary, not positively impressive, in Shakespeare. In "Titus Andronicus," the title character claims that his dead sons' ghosts require him to sacrifice one of the prisoners. He says that by doing so, his family will be spared "prodigies on earth."

Answer: Quick

"Quick" usually means "alive" in Shakespeare, though it does have many other meanings (including "pregnant" and the more recognizable "fast" meaning from today). One instance of the "alive" meaning is from "Hamlet," when Hamlet begs "be buried quick with her, and so will I" at Ophelia's funeral.

Answer: Physical

"Physic" and "Physical" mean "medicine" and "medicinal/healthful" - as found in "Julius Caesar," where Portia asks Brutus if it is "physical" to walk out and about in the cold air.