Shakespeare

• Shakspeare, Shakspere (obsolete)

Common Middle English surname meaning "spearman", corresponding to shake (“brandish a weapon”) + spear.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈʃeɪkspɪɹ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈʃeɪkspɪə/
• Hyphenation: Shake‧speare

Shakespeare

1. A surname​.
2. William Shakespeare, an English playwright and poet of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries
3. His works or media adaptations of his works.

• (William Shakespeare): Note that Shakespeare's manuscripts use a great many different spellings of his surname, too numerous to list here. (At the time, some name spellings were much more variable than today, see Spelling of Shakespeare's name for a list.)

• Shakespearean

Shakespeare (countable and uncountable, plural Shakespeares)

1. (uncountable) Eloquent language, especially English; poetry.
   • 1979 October 10, Russell Maker, “Highbrows Ruin Baseball's Language”, in Toledo Blade:

     This may not be poetry, but in competition with "Ryan has good velocity and excellent location" it is pure Shakespeare.

2. (countable) A playwright of the standing of William Shakespeare
   • 1997 Vivien Allen, "Hall Caine: portrait of a Victorian romancer‎"

     Caine, he said, might be a budding Shakespeare but in Shakespeare's time all it took to put on a play was a barn, a crude stage, ...

• Category:English terms first attested in Shakespeare

Shakespeare m

1. Shakespeare (William Shakespeare, English playwright)