Well attestedNamed from the place
something is rotten in the state of Denmark
verb · first attested circa 1600
Hamlet does not say it; a guard on the battlements does.
Said when corruption or wrongdoing is suspected at the top of an organization.
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Attested
- circa 1600
- Part of speech
- verb
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Denmark
- In English
something is rotten in the state of Denmark
Marcellus speaks the line in Act I of Hamlet, after the ghost leads the prince away, and he means the court rather than the kingdom. English lifted the sentence whole and now aims it at any institution, with Denmark carried along as an innocent bystander.
Also pinned to Denmark
1 more from the same place
Denmark
All 6 entries 4 more words from Denmark
Copenhagen plankA groin exercise carries a Danish city's name and nobody agrees why.Copenhagencream HavartiThe cheese is named after a farm outside Copenhagen where a woman reverse-engineered European cheesemaking.HolteHavartiThe cheese is named for a farm, seventy years after the woman who developed it worked there.HoltescandiumMendeleev predicted it as eka-boron and a Swede found it, so it was named for the whole peninsula.Scandinavia