| greed | excessive desire to acquire or possess more than one needs or deserves |
| ambition | a strong drive for success |
| corruption | use of a position of trust and/or power for dishonest gain |
| prophecy | prediction of the future |
| paradox | a self-contradiction(Ex. “‘I always lie’ is a paradox because if it is true it must be false”) |
| minion | a follower or underling of a powerful person, esp. a servile or unimportant one |
| haste | the act of moving hurriedly and in a careless manner |
| solicit | To ask for in a formal way. |
| prate | idle or foolish and irrelevant talk |
| whence | From where |
| multitudinous | too numerous to be counted |
| posterity | all future generations |
| indissoluble | permanent |
| parricide | act of killing one’s father, mother, or other close relative |
| sundry | miscellaneous unspecified objects |
| dispatched | sent off or away |
| conjure | cause to appear by magic; summon (a devil or a spirit) by magical power; practice magic (esp. by very quick movement of the hands); evoke; conjure up: bring into the mind; Ex. The magician conjured a rabbit out of his hat. |
| thane | a man ranking below a noble in Anglo-Saxon England (especially one who gave military service in exchange for land) |
| potent | powerful |
| apparition | a ghostly appearing figure |
| perturb | disturb in mind or make uneasy or cause to be worried or alarmed |
| guise | an external appearance, cover, mask |
| fiend | a cruel wicked and inhuman person |
| intrenchant | invulnerable; incapable of being hurt or wounded |
| treatise | article treating a subject systematically and thoroughly |
| profess | confess one’s faith in, or allegiance to |
| venal | capable of being corrupted |
| quell | suppress or crush completely |
| reprisal | an injury done in return for injury |
| duress | compulsion by threat; forcible confinement |
| askance | (used especially of glances) directed to one side with or as if with doubt or suspicion or envy |
| overt | open and observable |
| tantamount | equal to |
| talisman | a trinket or piece of jewelry thought to be a protection against evil |
| dramatic irony | when the meaning of the situation is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play |
| soliloquy | Dramatic speech that reveals a character’s private thoughts to the audience. |
| aside | A remark made by a character to another character that others on stage are not supposed to hear. |
| blank verse | Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| Iambic pentameter | A metrical pattern in poetry which consists of 5 iambic feet per line, or 10 syllables total per line. (An iamb, or iambic foot, consists of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.) |
| colors | The national flags or banners of a country |
| foreshadowing | A narrative device that hints at coming events; often builds suspense or anxiety in the reader. |
| theme | A message about life or human nature that the writer shares with the reader. |
| covert | not openly acknowledged or displayed |
Macbeth- Themes
December 3, 2019