Heminges

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The surname of John Heminges, a seventeenth-century English actor who helped compile the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays
2. A family name borne by John Heminges, the Elizabethan actor and fellow of the King's Men who co-edited Shakespeare's First Folio
3. Used as a surname for John Heminges, the early modern actor whose work preserving Shakespeare's plays in the 1623 First Folio is well known

Etymology: John Heminges was an actor who spent much of his career alongside William Shakespeare in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and its successor, the King's Men. He was also a shareholder in the company and handled much of its business affairs, which is why his name appears so often in the theatre's records. In 1623, seven years after Shakespeare's death, Heminges and fellow actor Henry Condell gathered the company's playbooks and published the collection now called the First Folio. Without their work, eighteen of Shakespeare's plays, including Macbeth, The Tempest and Julius Caesar, might never have reached print. The surname is a patronymic meaning "son of Hemming," from an old personal name of uncertain origin, probably Scandinavian or Old English. The spelling with "-ges" is an older form that was common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.