William Shakespeare is credited with introducing hundreds of words still used in English today.

Words like “eyeball,” “bedroom,” “lonely,” “generous,” and “swagger” all show up in written English for the first time in Shakespeare’s plays and poems, based on the earliest citations collected in historical dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary. Because his work was so widely read and performed, phrases and coinages that might otherwise have stayed obscure or regional spread widely and stuck.

It’s worth noting that “first recorded use” isn’t the same as certain proof Shakespeare personally invented every one of these words; some may already have existed in spoken English before he happened to be the first to write them down, since surviving written records from the period are incomplete. Even accounting for that, the sheer number of terms and phrases traced back to his work — including everyday idioms like “break the ice” and “wild goose chase” — makes him one of the most influential single contributors to the modern English vocabulary.