Word families

Shakespeare often refers to the heart. But he also uses this word to help create other words, such as unheart, heart-sore, and heartless. How many such derived words are there, and how are they used? Type HEART into the search-box and you will see.

We use the term word-family to identify the set of words that contain the same basic element. They will be part of a compound word (as in heart-sore), accompanied by a prefix (as in unheart) or a suffix (as in heartless), or used in different ways (e.g. as a noun and a verb). In this section we list all the words in the canon (in the modern English version) that have family resemblances so you can see which words Shakespeare exploited in this way, and which he did not. Words that are not included (such as the and Horatio) are described on the further information page here.

When there are several family members, we group them into themes, showing the directions in which Shakespeare used a word. Where these occur, they are listed under the main heading. The names of the themes, taken along with their family members, we hope are self-explanatory, but more illustration can be found on the further information page here.
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JACK
ANIMAL
PEOPLE
TIME
JADE
JAKES
JANGLE
JANUARY
JAR
JAUNCE
JAUNDICE
JAVELIN
JAW
PART
JAY
PEOPLE
JEALOUS
EMOTION
PEOPLE
JEER
INTENSITY
JELLY
JENNET
JEOPARDY
JERK
JERKIN
TYPE
JESS
JEST
INTENSITY
JET
JEWEL
INTENSITY
PEOPLE
JEWRY
PEOPLE
JIG
PEOPLE
JILL
PEOPLE
JINGLING
JOCKEY
JOCUND
JOG
JOHN
FISH
MIND
JOIN
ACTION
FOOD
OBJECT
PART OF BODY
PEOPLE
STATE
NOT
JOLLY
JOLTHEAD
JOSTLE
JOT
JOURNAL
JOURNEY
PEOPLE
STATE
JOUST
JOVIAL
JOWL
JOY
HAPPY
INTENSITY
PEOPLE
NOT
JUDGE
ACTION
GODS
PLACE
JUG
JUGGLE
PEOPLE
JUICE
PLANT
JULY
JUMP
JUNE
JUNIOR
JUNKET
JUNO
JURY
FUNCTION
PEOPLE
SPEECH
JUST [right]
GODS
PEOPLE
STATE
NOT
JUST [time]
JUSTLE
JUT
JUVENAL
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