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Shakespeare occupies a rarefied place in the popular imagination. In particular, he is widely celebrated for his creativity with language, and he tends to be portrayed as a singular genius with an inimitable vocabulary and an astounding gift for word invention. Yet as recent scholarship has shown, Shakespeare's language was in fact remarkably average; rather than standing as a shining exception, Shakespeare had a lexicon and a word‐invention rate in keeping with those of his contemporaries. However, Shakespeare's “ordinariness” does not mean that he was not linguistically creative. This essay focuses on Shakespeare's brilliant but subtle manipulation of the existing resources of his language. Shakespeare has an uncanny ability to render common words fresh, and to exploit the unique features of the English of his day, so that even the most ordinary language is transformed into something resonant. Revising Shakespeare's reputation as linguistic innovator means acknowledging his more understated language skills and ultimately allows for a more complete understanding, and fuller appreciation, of his work.

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