Word Nerd: "doom"
Context and Language Videos
Act 3,
Scene 4
Lines 50-52a
Hamlet
Video Transcript:
SARAH: Hamlet uses the word doom as short for Doomsday, or Judgment Day from the Bible.
RALPH: Originally doom had the neutral meaning of a proclamation or judgment; but, perhaps because early modern Christians had a rather pessimistic expectation of what God's judgment of humanity would be in the final judgment, Doomsday, and subsequently doom, took on a negative - well, a very negative! - connotation.