In honor of William Shakespeare’s birthday this weekend, Sunday, April 23,* today’s Scrabble post features Shakespeare characters whose names are also playable common nouns.
- ariel: a gazelle found in Africa (Ariel, The Tempest, 1611-12)
- dogberry: the fruit of a dogwood tree (Dogberry, Much Ado about Nothing, 1598-1599)
- hamlet: a village (the title character of Hamlet, 1600-1601)
- lear: learning (the title character of King Lear, 1605-1606)
- puck: a disk used in ice hockey and other games (Puck, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1595-1596)
- romeo: a seductive lover, a male lover (one of the title characters in Romeo and Juliet, 1594-1595)
- shylock: to lend money with a high interest rate (Shylock, The Merchant of Venice, 1596-1597)
*April 23, the day of Shakespeare’s death in 1616, is traditionally given for his birth in 1564.
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Wordplay Day! To up your game and increase your word power, review the tips and tools on the Scrabble website as well as this blog post and my other posts devoted to the game.
Jane Lucas 