Macbeth Vocabulary List 1-20

Disdaining

(verb) disregarding; rejecting; ignoring

Valor

(noun) courage; bravery; fearlessness

Valiant

(adj) brave, courageous, bold

Dwindle

(v) to decrease; to lessen, to diminish; to decline

Pine (“Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine”), (1.3.24)

(v) to decrease; to lessen, to diminish; to decline.

Rapt (“You greet with present grace and great prediction Of noble having and of royal hope, That he seems rapt withal”) (1.3.58-60)

(adj) captivated; spellbound; absorbed

Wrack (“He labored in his country’s wrack, I know not; But treasons capital, confessed and proved, Have overthrown him”), (1.3.122-124)

(n, v) ruin; destruction

Capital

(adj) highly important; principal; first-rate

Prologues

(n) opening; beginning; preamble

Cleave (New honors come upon him, Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mold But with the aid of use.”), (1.4.160-162)

(v) to adhere; to stick

Peerless

(adj) unequaled; superior; unrivaled; matchless

Direst

(adj) (also dire, adj, direness, n) most terrible, awful, horrible

Keen

(adj) sharp

Spur

(n, v) to urgent; to encourage; to prod

Vaulting (“Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself”), (1.7.27)

(adj) strongly wishing; yearning

Undaunted

(adj) (also dauntless, adj) fearless; unworried; undisturbed

Clamor

(n) (also clamored, v, clamorous, adj) commotion; racket

Prate

(v) to babble; to talk gibberish

Knell

(n) the sound of a bell, especially when rung for a death or funeral

Equivocator

(n) - one who uses unclear language so as to conceal the truth