Elizabethan English
Tudor-era language style
Elizabethan English is the form of English spoken and written during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603), the language of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the King James Bible.
It features verb forms now archaic—thou art, he doth, she hath—and pronouns like thee and thy.
Forsooth, methinks the lady doth protest too much.
The term often extends loosely to Renaissance English generally, covering the early 1600s as well.
- bedazzleImpress overwhelmingly
- Tudor dynastyEnglish royal house
- ShakespeareElizabethan dramatist and poet
- thouArchaic second-person pronoun
- swaggerConfident, boastful manner
thee · eyeball · doth · Globe Theatre · zany · methinks · Marlowe · wherefore · amazement · gossip · forsooth · hark back · good morrow · hath · whence · iambic pentameter · blank verse · masque
- Tudor Englishthee, thou, thy, thine, ye
- literary devicesmetaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, alliteration
- lexicographydictionary, dictionaries, definition, definitions, thesaurus
Elizabethan EnglishModern English
English as currently spoken
Old English · Anglo-Saxon · Middle English · texting language · minimalist style
Elizabethan Englishcasual speech
Unstudied everyday language
slang · everyday speech · vernacular · plain English · street language
Elizabethan Englishplain English
Unadorned, accessible wording
modern slang · informal speech · street language · casual conversation