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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KAM
KATE
KECKSIE
KEECH
KEEL
KEEN
STATE
KEEP
ANIMAL
PEOPLE
STATE
NOT
KEISAR
KEN
KENDAL
KENNEL
NOT
KENT
PEOPLE
KERCHIEF
KERN
KERNEL
KERSEY
KETTLE
KEY
STATE
KIBE
KICK
KICKSHAW
KICKY-WICKY
KID-FOX
KIDNEY
STATE
KILL
PEOPLE
STATE
KILN
KIN
PEOPLE
KIND [nice]
INTENSITY
STATE
NOT
KIND [sort]
KINDLE
ACTION
STATE
TIME
KINE
TYPE
KING
PEOPLE
PLACE
STATE
NOT
KINSMAN
KINSWOMAN
KIRTLE
TYPE
KISS
FOOD
HEIGHT
PART OF BODY
STATE
KITCHEN
PEOPLE
PLACE
KITE
INTENSITY
KITTEN
KNACK
KNAP
KNAVE
KNEAD
KNEE
ACTION
AMOUNT
PART OF BODY
STATE
KNEEL
KNELL
KNIFE
TYPE
KNIGHT
CLOTHING
PEOPLE
STATE
KNIT
INTENSITY
PEOPLE
NOT
KNOB
KNOCK
KNOLL
KNOT
PART OF BODY
STATE
KNOW
AMOUNT
INTENSITY
PEOPLE
SPEECH
TIME
NOT
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