The investigation of the lexical group “clothing” is part of a bigger research into the textual elements describing life-style in “Hamlet” with the objective of studying the role and function of this semantic segment. We attribute to lifestyle such groups, which represent buildings (castle), parts of building (chamber, closet, hall), furniture (table, bed, shelf), room decoration (arras, mirror), food and drink (cold meats, salets, goblet) and clothing. The latter is the most numerous and best represented group in the play.

Clothing in the text concerns mainly male outfit and describes pieces of clothing from top to footwear; words of general meaning synonymous to the head-word are also used.  This lexical set has different roles in the play and allows for various interpretations.

Clothing is actually discussed by the characters (Polonius, Ophelia), thus indicating its serious cultural function in the society of the period, which contributes a lot to the general cultural and linguistic aim of our research.

Several mentions of the topic words characterize the functional and psychological state the characters are in (the Ghost, Hamlet); The general overview gives a certain idea of the fashion of the time. Of additional interest is comparison of the words under study with the present-day meanings presented in dictionaries.