Literary Smackdown: Chaucer vs. Shakespeare

In his new book All in a Word , linguist Vivian Cook lists all the words that the literary titans Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare “invented”—or at least had the first recorded use.

Who do you think was the master neologist? Shakespeare or Chaucer? Flavorwire compiled a list of the terms (and highlighted their favorites) on the graphic below:

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