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Word Nerd: "doom"
Context and Language Videos
Act 3,
Scene 4
Lines 50-52a

An explanation of the word "doom" in Act 3, Scene 4 of myShakespeare's Hamlet.

myShakespeare | Hamlet 3.4 Word Nerd: Doom

Hamlet

Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.    
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.