The works of William Shakespeare provide the first recorded use of some 1,700 words in the English language. In some cases, these were preexisting words that Shakespeare was simply the first to write down, but many others were invented or introduced by the Bard himself. He also coined a wide range of expressions that we still use today, such as “in a pickle,” “with bated breath,” and “wild goose chase.”
And then there were the insults. Shakespeare was a master of barbs and jabs, and he used insults to both comedic and dramatic effect. His works include a plethora of colorful invectives that could provoke mighty guffaws from commoners standing in the pit, as well as bashful titters from aristocrats in the private galleries. The insults that are darker in tone could replace actual violence — as Hamlet says as he prepares to face his mother, “I will speak daggers to her, but use none.”
Here are some of Shakespeare’s finest insults, including a precursor to the “yo mama” joke and some of the most creative and satisfying put-downs in the English language.
This rapid-fire assault from Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 1 compares its target — who happens to be Prince Hal, the future Henry V — to various thin, dried, and unappetizing things, including the skin of an elf, a shriveled cow’s tongue, a bull’s penis, and dried cod.
In Shakespeare’s comedy The Taming of the Shrew, Curtis uses this line to attack Grumio’s physical stature while also insulting his intelligence. Then there’s the secondary connotation of “three-inch,” calling into question the size of Grumio’s manhood. It’s a short insult, but it packs quite a punch.
In Act 2 of All’s Well That Ends Well, the wise nobleman Lafeu confronts the tricky, deceitful Parolles. Lafeu doesn’t hold back, berating Parolles by declaring him so universally disliked that he deserves to be beaten by literally everyone.
Proving that Shakespeare could be crude at times, this straightforward precursor to the modern “yo mama” joke is perhaps one of his most direct and brutal insults. Spoken by the cunning villain Aaron in Titus Andronicus — often considered the Bard’s most violent work — its vulgarity underscores Aaron’s cruel nature.
This colorful and — to modern audiences — largely impenetrable stream of insults is worth dissecting for its fantastic words. The diatribe, spoken by a page in a larger exchange with Falstaff in Henry IV, Part 2, begins with “scullion,” used in Shakespeare’s day to refer to any person of low rank. This is followed by “rampallian,” meaning “a wretch” or “a good-for-nothing scoundrel,” and then “fustilarian” (an alteration of the earlier and even more magical word “fustilugs”), used to refer to a ponderous, clumsy person. “I’ll tickle your catastrophe,” meanwhile, roughly translates to “I’ll smack you on your behind.”
This is perhaps the most elegant insult in Shakespeare’s vast repertoire. Delivered by Orlando in As You Like It, it’s a graceful way of telling someone you’d rather never see them again.
In The Merry Wives of Windsor, we encounter the character Slender, whose name comically refers to both his lack of wit and and his physical stature. (He is described as having “a little wee face, with a little yellow beard.”) In Act 1, Scene 1, Bardolph insults him by comparing him to a very specific type of cheese — an insult that made sense to contemporary audiences familiar with this particular dairy product. Banbury cheese was very thin, with little actual cheese after the rind was removed — it was therefore a clever and fitting way to mock both Slender’s name and his physical slightness.
One Shakespearean insult that deserves to be revived for the 21st century is “cream-faced loon.” Spoken by Macbeth, it’s a fairly simple jab meaning “pasty-faced idiot” — but it certainly rolls off the tongue.
As insults go, being called a “luxurious mountain goat” might not sound so bad. But in the insult Pistol launches at a French soldier in Henry V, “luxurious” doesn’t have today’s connotation of “opulent or sumptuous” — rather, in Shakespeare’s time, it meant something akin to being self-indulgent, louche, or hedonistic. The Bard likely used “mountain goat” due to the animal’s association with randy behavior, creating an insult that in today’s parlance would mean something like “you damned, lecherous goat.”
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