OVER AND OUT

“I would have such a fellow whipt for o’erdoing Termagant,” Hamlet warns the Players about overacting, “it out-Herod’s Herod, pray you avoid it” (Hamlet, III.ii.12-14).  Many compound words that come from Shakespeare begin with either over or out—for example, out-Herod’s.  Which of those two prepositions are used in the following coinages by the Bard and in what plays are the phrases used?

 

1.        “—–cool their blood”

2.       “Italy hath —–crafted him”

3.       “like ——ripen’d corn”

4.       “—–tongue his complaints”

5.       “he hath —- villain’d villainy”

6.       “with —–weather’d ribs and ragged sails”

 

 

 

ANSWERS:

1.  Over-cool appears in 2 Henry IV.  (IV. iii. 91-92)

2. OUtcraftied appears in Cymbeline.  (III. iv. 15

3.  Over-ripened appears in 2 Henry VI. (I. ii. 1)

4.  Out-tongue appears in Othello.  (I. ii. 19)

5.  Out-villained appears in All’s Well that Ends Well.  (IV. iii. 273)

6.  Over-weathered appears in The Merchant of Venice.  (II. vi. 18)