ACT V - Scene V — Vocabulary

Vocabulary Words from ACT V - Scene V

ague (noun)

A fever marked by chills, sweating, and shaking; here used to mean disease and suffering that will weaken the besieging army.

dareful (adjective)

Full of daring; bold and courageous. Macbeth wishes he could have met the enemy in brave, face-to-face combat.

fell (noun)

The skin or scalp; here referring to the hair on Macbeth's head that would once have risen in fear.

treatise (noun)

A written or spoken account; a narrative. Macbeth recalls how a frightening story would once have made his hair stand on end.

direness (noun)

The quality of being dreadful or terrible; horror and dread considered as a familiar state of being.

slaughterous (adjective)

Characterized by slaughter; murderous and bloodthirsty. Macbeth acknowledges his thoughts are permanently stained by violence.

hereafter (adverb)

At some future time; later on. In Macbeth's usage, it carries deliberate ambiguity—meaning either "eventually" or "in a future that will never come."

syllable (noun)

The smallest unit of spoken language; here used metaphorically to mean the final moment or smallest measurement of time.

struts (verb)

To walk with a proud, stiff, self-important gait. Macbeth compares life to an actor who parades across the stage with false confidence.

frets (verb)

To worry or be anxious; to agitate oneself. Paired with "struts," it captures the two modes of human behavior—vanity and anxiety.

equivocation (noun)

The use of ambiguous language to deceive; saying something technically true that leads to a false conclusion. A central theme of the play.

avouches (verb)

To declare or affirm to be true; to guarantee the truth of a statement.

sooth (noun)

Truth or reality. An archaic word meaning "what is true," related to the modern word "soothsayer" (truth-teller).

harness (noun)

Armor or military equipment. Macbeth vows to die fighting in his armor rather than surrender or hide within the castle walls.

wrack (noun)

Ruin, destruction, or catastrophe. Macbeth invites total destruction, having lost all hope and desire to preserve himself or his world.

cling (verb)

In Shakespearean usage, to cause to shrivel or waste away from starvation. Different from the modern meaning of holding tightly.