Kiss Me Kate

“Shakespeare words”

Act I, Scene 5, which takes place in a street in Padua outside Baptista’s house 

• Zounds is a contraction of his wounds, meaning Christ’s wounds. [“I’ve Come to Wive It Wealthily in Padua”]
• A meacock is an effeminate or spiritless man.
• lief = ready, willingly (pronounced just like leaf)
• high cross = market cross, a cross set up in a market place.

• In Shakespeare’s time, it is probable that the name Kate had the same vowel as cat, only longer.  
  For I am he am born to tame you Kate,
  And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
  Conformable as other household Kates.
  ---Act II, scene i, 275-277 in The Taming of the Shrew
  The pun was more obvious to the Elizabethan ear.

Act I, Scenes 8 and 9, which take place in front of the Church in Padua in which Katharine and Petruchio are married

• jerkin: a jacket or short coat
• breeches: the close-fitting knee-length leg coverings worn in earlier centuries, or colloquially trousers
• chattel: an item of movable or immovable property; also, a slave (< ML capitale < L caput = head; > capital: assets available for investment; > cattle: from the days when a man’s worth was determined by the size of his herd)
• pate: the head or the crown of the head; humorously, the brains
• dastard: a mean or arrogant coward
• bounder: a cad: an ill-bred, unscrupulous man.
• flounder: a kind of flat fish, often used for food.  The verb flounder means to move awkwardly.

Act II, Scene 3, in which Petruchio brings Katharine to his country-house

• trencher: a board or wooden platter on which to carve and serve food; and, by extension, food.
• whoreson: bastard
• dresser: a table or bench on which meat and other food is dressed and prepared
• choler: bile, which in ancient and medieval physiology was supposed to be the humor the excess of which caused irascibility; hence, biliousness, irritability, anger.
• Flesh in 16th century usage is what we call meat.  Then meat simply referred to food.
• ruff: a stiffly-starched wheel-shaped collar worn in the 16th and 17th centuries
• fardingale or farthingale: a hoop skirt or hoop petticoat
• porringer: a dish, bowl, or cup for porridge
• bespeak: to speak or arrange for beforehand
• cockle: a cockle shell, which is a small, rounded shell; a scallop shell is an example
• habiliment: dress, attire; accouterment, equipment
• bolster: a long narrow pillow or cushion, especially one that extends from side to side across a bed
• coverlet: a bedspread or counterpane; the outer covering of a bed
• hurly: turmoil, uproar

Act II, Scene 8, in Baptista’s home

• sirrah: a term of address implying inferiority, often used in anger or contempt
• bauble: a trifling bit of finery
• fie: an exclamation expressing disgust or dislike
• lord: one who has power or authority
• unapt: unsuitable
• wench: a girl or maiden
• Italian words:
  • caro = dear
  • carissimo = dearest
  • bellisimo = prettiest
  • presto = fast
  • prestissimo = fastest