Many critics of Shakespeare’s style have commented on his lexical innovations, but only too often exemplification has consisted of random listing where neologisms such as bare-faced, countless, distrustful, dog-weary, ensconce, fancy-free, ill-got, lack-lustre and crop-ear have been quoted without any analysis of the patterns on which they were formed, the underlying grammatical relationships in the compounds or the purposes for which they were coined. Some scholars have discussed the characteristics of Shakespeare’s diction in general, without distinguishing his neologisms; others have concerned themselves with individual methods of word-formation, such as functional conversion, or have investigated the effect of particular neologisms to the neglect of general linguistic considerations. At the other extreme, Franz’s grammar lists all the types of word-formation exemplified in Shakespeare’s usage, but without providing any guidance, except casually, on the extent of their originality or their purpose, while in another comprehensive work, Jespersen’s grammar of post-medieval English, Shakespearian examples are quoted only as incidental items in a general survey. The lack of any reasoned account of the principles directing Shakespeare’s lexical creativity has led to the kind of vague, subjective assessment of its nature and purpose which characterizes certain neologisms in Troilus and Cressida, including conflux, protractive, persistive, appertainments, soilure and embrasures, as ‘strange and shapeless, fashioned for argument rather than delight...