John Milton, wordsmith

I had always assumed that Shakespeare* had added the most words to our modern English vocabulary. An essay in the Guardian today suggests that honor should be bestowed on John Milton:

According to Gavin Alexander, lecturer in English at Cambridge university and fellow of Milton's alma mater, Christ's College, who has trawled the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) for evidence, Milton is responsible for introducing some 630 words to the English language, making him the country's greatest neologist, ahead of Ben Jonson with 558, John Donne with 342 and Shakespeare with 229. Without the great poet there would be no liturgical, debauchery, besottedly, unhealthily, padlock, dismissive, terrific, embellishing, fragrance, didactic or love-lorn. And certainly no complacency...

Milton's coinages can be loosely divided into five categories. A new meaning for an existing word - he was the first to use space to mean "outer space"; a new form of an existing word, by making a noun from a verb or a verb from an adjective, such as stunning and literalism; negative forms, such as unprincipled, unaccountable and irresponsible - he was especially fond of these, with 135 entries beginning with un-; new compounds, such as arch-fiend and self-delusion; and completely new words, such as pandemonium and sensuous.

More at the link.   *Edward DeVere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Reposted from 2009 to provide more information on pandemonium, because I recently read this paragraph in the Booker-prize-winning novel Orbital:

"They watched yesterday the lunar rocket go cleanly into the night.  They saw the fireball create a corona that lifted like a sudden sun, the ripping of the rocket boosters, a tower of smoke.  Then the rocket forcing itself from the pandemonium of its launch and sailing up in effortless peace."

Milton would have loved that usage of the word to incorporate both noise and flames.  Our modern usage seems to focus entirely on chaotic sounds, as evidenced by its incorporation into rock bands and albums.  But for Milton, pandemonium was the literal capital of Hell, as depicted in this painting by John Martin:

"The name stems from the Greek pan (παν), meaning 'all' or 'every', and daimónion (δαιμόνιον), a diminutive form meaning 'little spirit', 'little angel', or, as Christians interpreted it, 'little daemon', and later, 'demon'. Pandæmonium thus roughly translates as "All Demons"—but can also be interpreted as Pandemoneios (Παν-δαιμον-ειον), or 'all-demon-place'.

John Milton invented the name in Paradise Lost (1667), as "A solemn Council forthwith to be held at Pandæmonium, the high Capitol, of Satan and his Peers" [Book I, Lines 754-756], which was built by the fallen angels at the suggestion of Mammon. It was designed by the architect Mulciber, who had been the designer of palaces in Heaven before his fall. (In Roman times, Mulciber was another name for the Roman god Vulcan.) Book II begins with the debate among the "Stygian Council" in the council-chamber of Pandæmonium. The demons built it in about an hour, but it far surpassed all human palaces or dwellings; it was probably quite small, however, as its spacious hall is described as being very crowded with the thronging swarm of demons, who were taller than any human man, until at a signal they were shrunk from their titanic size to less than "smallest dwarfs". It was also reputed to be made of solid gold."

Text from Wikipedia.