In 18th-century England, it’s likely that less than half of the general public could do much more than sign their name. Those people who had the time, the talent, and most importantly the money to educate themselves and spend their lives reading and writing and studying were often known as “men of letters” (though there were women, if only a few, as part of this group) and were greatly admired. One such man was Horace Walpole, who lived through most of the 18th century in England, a prominent politician, historian, and author. Fans of the 21st-century craze for books featuring supernatural powers and beings (like “Harry Potter” and “Twilight”) might be interested to know that Walpole wrote the very first Gothic novel, titled “The Castle of Otranto.” In his writing and in his love of words, Walpole created or introduced words and added them to the English vocabulary; many of these words we use today, and all are useful to know. Here are some of the words we have from Walpole:

serendipity (seh-rehn-DIP-uh-tee) noun
This word was created by Walpole in 1754, and means “accidental good fortune, a lucky occurrence, an unexpected benefit.”
Example: It was pure serendipity that led Alexander Fleming to isolate the antibiotic penicillin, because if he had cleaned all of his laboratory materials before leaving on holiday, the naturally-occurring mold would have had nowhere to grow.

nuance (NOO-ahns) noun
The first appearance of this word in an English-language text was in a letter written by Walpole in 1781 to Anne, Countess of Upper Ossory. It’s a French word, and the English meaning is the same: a shading, subtlety, or minor but essential detail. The adjective nuanced is often used to describe someone’s speech or persuasive argument.
Example: No matter how well you speak another language, there are nuances in even ordinary conversations that are hard to understand unless you’ve lived in that country for many years.

somber (US) / sombre (UK) (SAHM-burr) adjective
This is another French word that Walpole helped bring into the English language; it means dark, dreary, gloomy, or melancholy.
Example: The great apartment is first; painted ceilings, inlaid floors, and unpainted wainscots make every room sombre. The tapestries are fine, but not fine enough, and there are few portraits. – Walpole, in a letter to George Montagu dated 1760

Increasing your English vocabulary will make you a better writer, because you’ll have a wider selection of words to choose from. As Walpole is credited with saying, “A poet who makes use of a worse word instead of a better, because the former fits the rhyme or the measure, though it weakens the sense, is like a jeweler, who cuts a diamond into a brilliant, and diminishes the weight to make it shine more.” Let your English vocabulary skills shine!