Fun Fact

Shakespeare gave “multitudinous” its most famous appearance in Macbeth when the guilt-ridden king wonders if all Neptune’s ocean could wash blood from his hands, or would his hand instead make “the multitudinous seas incarnadine.” It’s one of literature’s most powerful images of overwhelming guilt—not just many seas, but innumerable, countless, infinite seas. The word itself feels multitudinous with its five syllables sprawling across the tongue. While “numerous” or “many” would work just fine, multitudinous adds dramatic weight, suggesting numbers so vast they become almost incomprehensible.