Did Shakespeare coin the word?


"[he] gets credit for actually writing it down"il
—Rob Watts


"Bedroom" is one of those words whose coining is often ascribed to Billy Waggledagger; Webster913 quotes A Midsummer's Night's Dream, in the mouth of Lysander:

LYSANDER
One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
One heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.
HERMIA
Nay, good Lysander. For my sake, my dear,
Lie further off yet. Do not lie so near.
LYSANDER
O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!
Love takes the meaning in love’s conference.
I mean that my heart unto yours is knit,
So that but one heart we can make of it;
Two bosoms interchainèd with an oath—
So then two bosoms and a single troth.
Then by your side no bed-room me deny,
For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.

In this passage, it's clear that they are sleeping close to one another outdoors, Hermia protesting that Lysander is too close, and Lysander wanting more intimacy. In this usage, "by your side no bed-room me deny", Lysander is not referring to a room as we might use 'bedroom' today, rather, room in Hermia's prescence in the bed, to be close to her.

The controversy over the number of words Shakespeare actually coined, i.e. actually invented, has been carrying on as long as there have been dictionaries, as people try to seek out the popular origins of words or phrases. the excellent Robb Watts, a YouTuber who examins language, released a wonderful discussion of this topic, challanging the number of words The Bard introduced into English. this could be the topic of a whole writeup of its own; suffice for now to say that he probably invented fewer words than many think, but because of the popularity of his plays, he probably popularised many usages of new language, and bedroom is probably one of those. after all, we had the perfectly cromulent word becchamber to describe the room one slept in and perhaps he caused people to rethink that usage and replace it with 'bedroom'? We may never know, but can speculate.

As many over time have experienced, the desire to share sleeping space, i.e. room in the bed, is a factor. This is clearly the meaning Shakespeare wishes to convey in the passage quoted.

I am what Christine used to call an edge-sleeper. To this day I tend sleep along the side of a bed. She (and her daughter, who would often join us in our giant bed) were starfish. Tess in particular would splay out her limbs to take up a disproportionate amount of room in the bed. Snuggling either meant managing their limbs beforehand. The battle of the bedding is a whole other part of the story, as many will bear witness to, the need to wrestle duvets or blankets off one's sleping partner in order to get comfort, is yet another skirmish in the war for bed room.






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