Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

1. A line from the play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare. An officer of the palace guard says this after the ghost of the dead king appears, walking over the palace walls.

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” is used to describe corruption or a situation in which something is wrong.

Example Sentences

As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” Emanuel wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

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"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," Mr Emanuel tweeted on Friday.

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“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark!”

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Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and Persia is no better off in Waterwell’s version of this Shakespeare tragedy, performed in English and Persian.

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Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and Persia is no better off in Waterwell’s version of this Shakespeare tragedy, performed in English and Farsi.

Read more on New York Times