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All Site ContentHamletAct 1Scene 2
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Word Nerd: "merely"
Context and Language Videos
Act 1,
Scene 2
Lines 135-142

An explanation of the word "merely" in Act 1, Scene 2 of myShakespeare's Hamlet.

myShakespeare | Hamlet 1.2 Word Nerd: Merely

Hamlet 

Fie on't! Oh fie fie! 'Tis an unweeded garden
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead – nay, not so much, not two –
So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
Video Transcript: 

RALPH: The Latin root of the word merely meant pure, or unmixed; so the original meaning of merely had a positive connotation: it meant completely or totally. And that's how Shakespeare uses it here.

SARAH: But in Elizabethan English, it was already beginning to be used with a restrictive, and more negative connotation, meaning only, or just, and this is how we use it today.