Untitled Flashcards Set

Hamlet

1. afoot – developing or in the process of happening

2. assail - violently assault

3. auspicious - favorable

4. avouch - affirmation

5. baseness – the quality of lacking higher values

6. beshrew - curse

7. besmirch - soil; tarnish

8. bestial – brutal without reason; having the attributes of a savage

9. blastments - injury by a destructive cause

10. brazen – shameless; insolent; disrespectful

11. cautel - deceit; falseness

12. calumnious - slanderous; defamatory

13. clemency – leniency

14. consonancy – agreement or harmony

15. cote - surpass

16. dexterity – skillful and active

17. discord – a lack of agreement; strife; tension

18. dole - sorrow

19. enmity - a feeling or condition of hostility; hatred; ill will

20. entreaty – a plea; an earnest request

21. equivocation – ambiguousness; deliberate evasiveness in wording

22. fardels - burdens

23. felicity – happiness or delight

24. fie – an interjection used to express disgust or disapproval

25. forbear – refrain

26. galled – annoyed; irritated

27. gratis – free

28. harbinger - foreshadows a future event; an omen

29. hies – goes quickly; hastens

30. homage – a reverential regard; respect shown by external action

31. importing – indicating or signifying

32. incorporeal – having no material or tangible form

33. ingenious – cleverness; inventiveness; resourcefulness

34. interred – deposited a dead body into a grave

35. jocund - cheerful; merry; blithe

36. martial – of, related to, or suggesting of war

37. mote - speck

38. mutine – rebel (like mutiny)

39. obstinate – unyielding regardless of reason or logic

40. ostentation – excessive display

41. palpable – tangible; perceptible; easily noticeable

42. parch – to become dry from heat; to shrivel from heat

43. parle - talk

44. partisan – a sword

45. peruse – to read or examine

46. plausive – manifesting praise or approval

47. ponderous – very heavy; unwieldy from weight

48. portentous - ominously significant

49. prate – to talk idly and foolishly at a great length

50. precepts - directives; rules

51. prodigal - giving or yielding profusely

52. quaintly – in an unusual or old-fashioned manner

53. quicksilver - the liquid metal mercury

54. ratify – to give formal approval

55. relish – to take great pleasure and delight in

56. requite – to make repayment or to return

57. retrograde – reverting to an earlier or inferior condition 

58. rouse – to awaken; to become active

59. sanctify – to set apart for sacred use; to make holy; to purify

60. scant – barely sufficient

61. scruple – feeling of doubt regarding morality

62. sepulcher – tomb cut into rock

63. sovereign – possessed of controlling power

64. spurn – to reject or to refuse with hostility

65. tenable – capable of being maintained in argument; rationally defensible

66. thews - muscles

67. usurp - seize by force

Literary Terms

68. allegory - a story with a moral or political meaning; achieved through symbols or extended metaphor

69. aside - In a play, a character’s comment that is directed to the audience or another character, but is not heard by any other characters on the stage.

70. ballad - a simple narrative poem of folk origin, composed in short stanzas and adapted for singing

71. couplet - a two-line stanza, or the same rhyme pattern in two conjoined lines

72. dramatic monologue – a poem that dramatizes someone’s thoughts and actions; the persona talks directly to the reader

73. dramatic irony - when the audience or reader knows something that the characters do not know.

74. foil - a minor character whose attitude, beliefs, and behavior differ significantly from those of a main character

75. in media res - beginning in the middle of things

76. lyric poetry - having the form and musical quality of a song; a songlike outpouring of the poet's thoughts and feelings

77. octave (or octet) - a stanza of eight lines

78. ode - a poem that commemorates or celebrates; written for an occasion; classic Odes have three parts

79. paradox - seemingly contradictory statement that, upon reflection, reveals a truth

80. quatrain - a stanza of four lines, usually with alternate rhymes

81. refrain - a repeating line/verse in a song or a poem

82. sestet - a six-line stanza

83. situational irony - when the outcome of a situation is the opposite of what was expected

84. soliloquy - a dramatic device in which a character, alone on a stage (or under the impression of being alone),reveals his or her private thoughts and feelings as if thinking aloud

85. sonnet - any 14 line poem, may be Shakespearean, Italian or Spenserian based on rhyme scheme 

86. syllogism - form of deductive reasoning in which related and dependent premises lead to a conclusion (e.g., coyness is fine if we have time; we have no time; therefore, let’s do this thing)

87. tercet - a group of three lines rhyming together or connected by rhyme with the adjacent group or groups of three lines

88. verbal irony - when a person says one thing while meaning another

89. villanelle - a 19 line form using only two rhymes and repeating two of the lines according to a set pattern

90. volta - the turn (shift) of thought or argument

Tone Words

91. apathetic - showing or feeling no interest, enthusiasm, or concern

92. brash - self-assertive in a rude, noisy, or overbearing way

93. droll - curious or unusual in a way that provokes dry amusement

94. earnest - resulting from or showing sincere and intense conviction

95. grave - giving cause for alarm; serious

96. jovial - cheerful and friendly

97. melancholy - a feeling of pensive sadness

98. ribald - referring to sexual matters in an amusingly coarse or irreverent way

99. surly - menacing or threatening in appearance

100. whimsical - playfully quaint or fanciful, especially in an appealing and amusing way