> > >Well, I'm not at all sure Shakespeare *invented* *any* word. > > > > >between 1590 and 1610 around 6,000 new words were being added to the > >lexicon [more correctly, 'dictionary'] every year. Shakespeare... > > >can't be beaten yet as earliest for 'dislocate', 'dwindle', > > > > > >'submerged', etc. > > >All good stuff, John. My point, though (which I didn't make clear, >perhaps), was that dictionaries only extremely rarely record the first >usage of any word. What they record is the first *documented* usage. > (Hello to everyone, I'm a new subscriber) And the fact that a word is first documented in Shakespeare's works has to be considered in the light of the fact that his was the period when sources in English first become plentiful - before that time far fewer texts in English survive, especially in colloquial, everyday English, than after. So it wouldn't be at all surprising for a long-existing word to be first documented in Elizabethan plays. And secondly, the words which Winchester referred to as being added to the lexicon at that time tended to be Latinate constructions (like dislocate, submerged) - which 'forescore' clearly isn't. Matt Tompkins Blaston, Leics