Shakespeare’s word cloud
Bigger words appear more often. Select a word to read it in context.
Opening the words…
Opening the 3D cloud…
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No words match. Try another spelling or choose All works.
The most frequent words are shown. Search to find any word.
About the texts
This cloud draws on 38 plays, 154 sonnets, and four other poems. A word’s size reflects how often it appears in the selected works.
Which texts are included?
These are modern reading texts from a specified digital edition, not transcriptions of the photographed 1623 First Folio. Collaborative plays are included as whole texts. The mixed-author Passionate Pilgrim is excluded.
How are words counted?
Counts cover literary dialogue and verse, excluding titles, speaker labels and stage directions. Capitals and lowercase count together. Curly apostrophes are treated like straight apostrophes; internal and leading apostrophes stay with the word, while hyphens divide words. Different spellings and inflections remain separate: “love” and “loves” have separate counts.
Common words such as “the” and “and” are hidden initially. Searching always includes them. Choose “Include common words” to show them in the cloud too. Position does not indicate a connection between words. In 3D, larger words occur more often. Perspective slightly changes apparent size, and fainter words sit farther back in the sphere. Turn it to bring those words forward, or switch to 2D to compare type sizes directly and select words with a keyboard.
Read the plays in modern spelling, one scene at a time. For the early printed pages, open the 1623 First Folio reader.