Excerpt from A Glossary to the Works of William Shakespeare The present volume contains a great variety of illustration, being a Glossary of uncommon words, of less uncommon words in their different significations, of passages which convey an obscure or doubtful sense, of proverbial expressions, of cant phrases, of manners and customs, of games and sports, of dresses and weapons, &c., and of numerous allusions with which only archaeologists and antiquaries are supposed to be familiar. Among the difficulties incident to a glossarist not the least is that of determining the nicer shades of meaning in which many words are used; and very probably some philologers may think that I have occasionally made distinctions where none in fact exist, and sometimes confounded what ought to have been kept distinct. Nor do I feel sure that sundry other things will not be objected to, and perhaps with justice, in such a mass of omnigenous matter as the following pages comprise. In availing myself of the comments of my predecessors from Theobald downwards, I have throughout acknowledged my obligations whenever they were at all important; which I the rather mention because of late it has been too much the fashion to borrow largely and verbatim from the notes of the Variorum Shakespeare, and yet to conceal the debt. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A vital resource for scholars, students and actors, this book contains glosses and quotes for over 14,000 words that could be misunderstood by or are unknown to a modern audience. Displayed panels look at such areas of Shakespeare's language as greetings, swear-words and terms of address. Plot summaries are included for all Shakespeare's plays and on the facing page is a unique diagramatic representation of the relationships within each play.