The Glass Menagerie: Scenes 1–2

by Tennessee Williams
Amanda Wingfield clings to her memories of her youth while living with her two children, Laura and Tom. When Tom brings a friend home for dinner, the family's precarious balance is disrupted.

Here are links to our lists for the play: Scenes 1–2, Scenes 3–4, Scenes 5–6, Scene 7
15 words 2011 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. conglomeration
    combining miscellaneous things into a rounded mass
    The Wingfield apartment is in the rear of the building, one of those vast hive-like conglomerations of cellular living-units that flower as warty growths in overcrowded urban centers of lower middle-class population and are symptomatic of the impulse of this largest and fundamentally enslaved section of American society to avoid fluidity and differentiation and to exist and function as one interfused mass of automatism.
  2. tenement
    a run-down apartment house barely meeting minimal standards
    At the rise of the curtain, the audience is faced with the dark, grim rear wall of the Wingfield tenement.
  3. sinister
    threatening or foreshadowing evil or tragic developments
    This building is flanked on both sides by dark, narrow alleys which run into murky canyons of tangled clotheslines, garbage cans, and the sinister latticework of neighboring fire escapes.
  4. proscenium
    the part of a stage between the curtain and the orchestra
    Just beyond, separated from the living room by a wide arch or second proscenium with transparent faded portieres (or second curtain), is the dining room.
  5. sentimental
    very sentimental or emotional
    Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted, it is sentimental, it is not realistic.
  6. temperament
    your usual mood
    AMANDA [lightly]: Temperament like a Metropolitan star!
  7. accommodate
    have room for; hold without crowding
    Why, sometimes there weren’t chairs enough to accommodate them all.
  8. elegiac
    expressing sorrow often for something past
    Her eyes lift, her face glows, her voice becomes rich and elegiac.
  9. beau
    a man with whom one has a romantic relationship
    Bates was one of my bright particular beaux!
  10. fugitive
    someone who is sought by law officers
    She slips in a fugitive manner through the half-open portieres and draws them gently behind her.
  11. ascent
    a movement upward
    At the sound of her ascent, Laura catches her breath, thrusts the bowl of ornaments away, and seats herself stiffly before the diagram of the typewriter keyboard as though it held her spellbound.
  12. bewildered
    extremely confused and uncertain what to do
    AMANDA: I’ll be all right in a minute, I’m just bewildered—[She hesitates.]—by life.
  13. induct
    place ceremoniously or formally in an office or position
    AMANDA: As you know, I was supposed to be inducted into my office at the D.A.R. this afternoon.
  14. pitiful
    inspiring mixed contempt and sorrow
    I’ve seen such pitiful cases in the South—barely tolerated spinsters living upon the grudging patronage of sister’s husband or brother’s wife!—stuck away in some little mousetrap of a room—encouraged by one in-law to visit another—little birdlike women without any nest—eating the crust of humility all their life!
  15. defect
    an imperfection in a bodily system
    Why, you’re not crippled, you just have a little defect—hardly noticeable, even!
Created on Wed May 15 19:38:18 EDT 2013 (updated Fri Aug 01 15:08:59 EDT 2025)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.