Search from various English teachers...

50 Shakespeare Phrases Still Used Today (With Meanings and Examples)

Key takeaways

Key takeaways

Shakespeare coined or first recorded hundreds of words and phrases now standard in English.
Many of his phrases appear in everyday speech without speakers realizing the source.
Knowing the original context adds nuance to how and when to use them.
Recognizing these phrases in reading and speech is one marker of advanced English fluency.

You use Shakespeare’s phrases every day. When something disappears “into thin air,” when jealousy becomes a “green-eyed monster,” when someone who overstays a welcome has “seen better days,” that is Shakespeare, four centuries later, still shaping how English speakers talk.

This guide covers 50 Shakespeare phrases still in everyday use, with the play they appear in, their meaning in plain English, and a modern example sentence for each.

italki connects you with English tutors who can help you learn these phrases in the context of real conversation, so they move from a list you recognize to phrases you can use naturally, drawing on a global network spanning 150+ languages and 30,000+ tutors.

Find Your Perfect Teacher

Build real English confidence with personalized lessons from a teacher who matches your goals, schedule, and learning style.

Book a trial lesson

Why did Shakespeare’s phrases survive?

Language keeps what is useful. Shakespeare’s phrases endured because they captured something universal (jealousy, loss, folly, ambition) in a form that was vivid and short enough to repeat. A phrase that describes a complicated feeling in three words tends to stick. Shakespeare also invented new words entirely. “Bedroom,” “lonely,” “swagger,” and “rant” are all words he either coined or made popular. You will find some of those in the list below, alongside phrases that have traveled intact from his plays into modern usage. Not every “Shakespeare phrase” is really his invention. Some he borrowed from earlier sources. But he was the one who put them into memorable dramatic form, which is why his versions are the ones that survived. Recognizing a phrase on a list is one thing; knowing when it sounds natural in conversation is another. Book a trial lesson with an English tutor and start using these phrases the way native speakers actually do.

50 Shakespeare phrases: meanings and examples

#	Phrase	Play	Meaning	Modern Example
1	All that glitters is not gold	The Merchant of Venice	Appearances can be deceiving	The startup had a great pitch, but all that glitters is not gold.
2	All’s well that ends well	All’s Well That Ends Well	Outcomes matter more than the process	We had delays, but the project launched on time. All’s well that ends well.
3	As good luck would have it	The Merry Wives of Windsor	Fortunately; luckily	As good luck would have it, we had a spare key.
4	Bated breath	The Merchant of Venice	Holding one’s breath in suspense	We waited with bated breath for the results.
5	Break the ice	The Taming of the Shrew	Initiate conversation in an awkward situation	He told a joke to break the ice at the networking event.
6	Cold-blooded	King John	Calm, without emotion; deliberately cruel	It was a cold-blooded decision to cut the whole team.
7	Cruel to be kind	Hamlet	Causing short-term pain to produce long-term benefit	Telling her the truth was cruel to be kind.
8	Dead as a doornail	Henry VI Part 2	Completely and unquestionably dead or finished	That proposal is dead as a doornail; no one will approve it.
9	Elbow room	King John	Space to move or operate freely	She needed more elbow room to grow her business.
10	Fancy-free	A Midsummer Night’s Dream	Not in love; free to enjoy life without attachment	Before the kids arrived, they traveled fancy-free.
11	Fight fire with fire	King John	Use the same tactics as your opponent	To compete with aggressive pricing, we had to fight fire with fire.
12	Forever and a day	The Taming of the Shrew	For an extremely long time	I’ve been waiting for this decision forever and a day.
13	Foregone conclusion	Othello	A result that was clearly predictable from the start	His promotion was a foregone conclusion.
14	Foul play	Hamlet	Unfair or criminal behavior	The investigation found evidence of foul play.
15	Full circle	King Lear	Returning to the same point or situation	Thirty years later, the company has come full circle.
16	Good riddance	Troilus and Cressida	Relief at getting rid of something or someone unwelcome	When the difficult client left, the team said good riddance.
17	Green-eyed monster	Othello	Jealousy	Don’t let the green-eyed monster ruin your friendship.
18	Hot-blooded	The Merry Wives of Windsor	Passionate; easily angered	He’s too hot-blooded to handle a slow negotiation.
19	Ill-starred	Othello	Unlucky; fated to end badly	The merger turned out to be an ill-starred venture.
20	In a pickle	The Tempest	In a difficult or awkward situation	Without the report, we were really in a pickle.
21	Into thin air	The Tempest	Vanishing completely without trace	The original documents disappeared into thin air.
22	It’s Greek to me	Julius Caesar	Completely incomprehensible	I tried to read the manual but it was Greek to me.
23	Kill with kindness	The Taming of the Shrew	Harm someone by being excessively generous or attentive	He smothered the project with so much input he killed it with kindness.
24	Lackluster	As You Like It	Dull; without energy or brightness	The presentation was lackluster; no one paid attention.
25	Laughingstock	The Merry Wives of Windsor	Someone who is publicly ridiculed	After that speech, he became the laughingstock of the office.
26	Love is blind	The Merchant of Venice	Love ignores faults and imperfections	She stayed in the partnership long after it made sense. Love is blind.
27	Marketable	As You Like It	Commercially attractive; able to be sold	She developed marketable skills during her course.
28	Mum’s the word	Henry VI Part 2	Keep quiet; say nothing about this	Mum’s the word about the surprise party.
29	Neither rhyme nor reason	As You Like It	No logical pattern or justification	The policy made neither rhyme nor reason to anyone.
30	Nothing will come of nothing	King Lear	You must put in effort to get results	He expected a raise without doing the work. Nothing will come of nothing.
31	One fell swoop	Macbeth	All at once; in a single action	The restructuring eliminated three departments in one fell swoop.
32	Own flesh and blood	The Merchant of Venice / Henry IV	A blood relative; family	You can’t turn your own flesh and blood away in a crisis.
33	Puny	The Tempest (related uses)	Small and weak	The company made only a puny profit in its first year.
34	Rant	Hamlet	Speak in a loud, angry, uncontrolled way	He ranted for twenty minutes before anyone could respond.
35	Seen better days	As You Like It	Past its prime; having declined from better times	The old building had clearly seen better days.
36	Set your teeth on edge	Henry IV Part 1	Cause irritation or discomfort	The constant noise set his teeth on edge.
37	Short shrift	Richard III	Little attention or consideration	The proposal got short shrift from the board.
38	Sneak (as a verb)	Henry IV Part 1	Move secretly or stealthily	He sneaked out before the meeting ended.
39	Sorry sight	Macbeth	A pitiful or regrettable scene	The abandoned project was a sorry sight.
40	Star-crossed	Romeo and Juliet	Thwarted by fate; destined to fail	The star-crossed partnership never had a chance.
41	Strange bedfellows	The Tempest	Unlikely or unusual allies	The merger made strange bedfellows of longtime rivals.
42	Swagger	A Midsummer Night’s Dream	Walk or behave arrogantly	He swaggered into the meeting as if he already owned the company.
43	The game is afoot	Henry V	The plan has begun; the chase has started	With the contract signed, the game was afoot.
44	The lady doth protest too much	Hamlet	Insisting on something so strongly it suggests the opposite	Every denial made it worse. The lady doth protest too much.
45	Uncomfortable	King John (early use)	Causing or experiencing discomfort	The conversation was uncomfortable for everyone in the room.
46	Vanish into thin air	The Tempest	Disappear completely	The budget vanished into thin air before the project finished.
47	Wear your heart on your sleeve	Othello	Show your emotions openly and without hiding them	She wore her heart on her sleeve in every performance review.
48	Wild-goose chase	Romeo and Juliet	A hopeless or fruitless search	Looking for the original file turned into a wild-goose chase.
49	With bated breath	The Merchant of Venice	In suspense; barely breathing from anticipation	The team waited with bated breath for the client’s decision.
50	Without rhyme or reason	As You Like It (variant)	Without any logical explanation or pattern	The changes were made without rhyme or reason.

Fifty phrases is a lot to hold onto from a list alone.Book a session with a native online English tutor and drill the ones that come up in your day-to-day conversations.

Find Your Perfect Teacher

Build real English confidence with personalized lessons from a teacher who matches your goals, schedule, and learning style.

Book a trial lesson

What did Shakespeare actually say, and what gets misquoted?

A few phrases are commonly credited to Shakespeare but have a complicated history. “To be or not to be” is genuinely Shakespearean (Hamlet, Act 3). But phrases like “the quality of mercy is not strained” often get paraphrased beyond recognition in everyday use. The most misquoted line is probably from King Lear: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.” Most people know it as “sharper than a serpent’s tooth,” a compressed version that has become its own idiom. What matters for language learners is not memorizing sources but recognizing these phrases in context. When you read “foregone conclusion” in a business article or hear “green-eyed monster” in conversation, you now know what is being said and why it works. Misquotes and compressed idioms are exactly the kind of nuance that’s hard to catch from a list.Ask an English teacher to walk you through the originals versus the versions people say.

How do you use these phrases in modern English?

Some of these phrases work in both formal and casual speech: “into thin air,” “break the ice,” “all’s well that ends well.” Others are more literary: “ill-starred,” “fancy-free,” “star-crossed.” A few are slightly old-fashioned in casual use but common in writing: “mum’s the word,” “short shrift.” The practical test is whether you have heard the phrase in a film, a podcast, or a news article recently. If yes, it is in active use. If you have only seen it in written lists, treat it as reading vocabulary first: understand it when you see it before trying to use it in conversation. Working through phrases like these with English teachers directly, rather than just reading definitions off a list, is what turns recognition into confident, natural use. For more on British English vocabulary and the way older phrases survive in modern usage, the guide to British English slang covers which expressions are current and which have dated. If you’re also working on pronunciation,tongue twisters for pronunciation and alliteration and tongue twisters cover a different, more physical side of English wordplay. A teacher’s real value here is context: knowing when “I was in a pickle” sounds natural versus when it sounds forced, or when “the game is afoot” reads as clever versus as cliched. Learn faster with a tutor who can tell you exactly when a phrase like this sounds natural versus forced, from italki’s network of 30,000+ expert tutors trusted by over 10 million learners worldwide.Book a trial lesson today and build vocabulary that comes from real conversation, not just a list.

Find Your Perfect Teacher

Build real English confidence with personalized lessons from a teacher who matches your goals, schedule, and learning style.

Book a trial lesson

FAQ

How do I know which Shakespeare phrases are still actually used today? The reliable test is whether you can find the phrase in current journalism, podcasts, or film dialogue. Phrases like “green-eyed monster” and “break the ice” appear constantly. Phrases like “fancy-free” appear mostly in writing. If a phrase only appears in Shakespeare lists, it may be more useful as reading vocabulary than speaking vocabulary. Did Shakespeare invent all these phrases, or did he borrow them? Both. Shakespeare was a skilled borrower and a genuine inventor. He drew from classical sources, folk sayings, and contemporary speech, but he arranged and popularized them in their most memorable form. Whether he coined a phrase or simply made it famous, his plays are where most of these expressions solidified into standard English. Is reading Shakespeare a good way to improve English? It is useful for advanced learners who want exposure to formal literary language, historical context, and idiomatic origin. For most intermediate learners, starting with modern text and recognizing Shakespeare’s phrases when they appear is more practical than reading the plays directly.