Shakespeare

proper noun

1. 1

   A surname.

   The name Shakespeare occurs from the 13th century on in the records of various English counties. The first Shakespeare as yet discovered in Warwickshire is one Thomas, a felon, who fled from the law in 1359. Toward the end of the fourteenth century there were landed Shakespeares at Baddesley, and this family held its own into the sixteenth.

2. 2

   A surname. William Shakespeare, an English playwright and poet of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

3. 3

   William Shakespeare's works or media adaptations of his works.

   He is reading Shakespeare.

   I'm surprised that even the allusion to Hamlet flew over his head. Even someone who barely knows Shakespeare might catch that one!

4. 4

   A place name: A village in Perth East township, Ontario, Canada, named after the playwright.

5. 5

   A place name: A ghost town in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, United States.

noun

1. 1

   Any form or style of language that is eloquent, especially in English; poetry.

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

2. 2

   A playwright of the standing of William Shakespeare.

   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, […]

verb

1. 1

   To act or perform in a play of the works of Shakespeare.

Forms

plural

Shakespeares

past tense

Shakespeared

past participle

Shakespeared

present participle

Shakespearing

third person singular

Shakespeares