Pygmalion: Act V–Sequel

by George Bernard Shaw
In this play inspired by the Greek myth of Pygmalion, Professor Henry Higgins bets that he can transform Eliza Doolittle, a poor flower seller, into a cultured and genteel lady. Read the full texthere.

Here are links to our lists for the play: Preface–Act I, Act II, Act III, Act IV, Act V–Sequel
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. accost
    approach and speak to someone aggressively or insistently
    He walks straight to Higgins, and accosts him with vehement reproach.
  2. vehement
    marked by extreme intensity of emotions or convictions
    He walks straight to Higgins, and accosts him with vehement reproach.
  3. bequest
    a gift of personal property by will
    Nobody can force you to accept this bequest.
  4. incorrigible
    impervious to correction by punishment
    He’s incorrigible, Eliza. You won’t relapse, will you?
  5. magnanimous
    generous and understanding and tolerant
    DOOLITTLE [sad but magnanimous] They played you off very cunning, Eliza, them two sportsmen.
    In Latin, "magnus" means "great" and "animus" means "mind, soul, spirit." The adjective is ironically used to describe Doolittle. He pretends that he's being noble by not being angry at how Higgins and Pickering played Liza. But really, he is not interfering because he does not want to financially support his daughter. The additional irony is that he had recently inherited a yearly share in a trust, and this was indirectly due to Higgins, who'd met Doolittle through Liza.
  6. malice
    the desire to see others suffer
    It was artful of you, Colonel; but I bear no malice: I should have done the same myself. I been the victim of one woman after another all my life; and I don’t grudge you two getting the better of Eliza.
  7. supplant
    take the place or move into the position of
    It is not in the slightest doubt as to his remaining one of the strongest personal interests in her life. It would be very sorely strained if there was another woman likely to supplant her with him.
  8. inveterate
    habitual
    When Higgins excused his indifference to young women on the ground that they had an irresistible rival in his mother, he gave the clue to his inveterate old-bachelordom.
  9. opulence
    wealth as evidenced by sumptuous living
    Freddy had no money and no occupation. His mother’s jointure, a last relic of the opulence of Largelady Park, had enabled her to struggle along in Earlscourt with an air of gentility, but not to procure any serious secondary education for her children, much less give the boy a profession.
  10. sinecure
    a job that involves minimal duties
    His prospects consisted of a hope that if he kept up appearances somebody would do something for him. The something appeared vaguely to his imagination as a private secretaryship or a sinecure of some sort.
  11. cogitation
    attentive consideration and thought
    It was the Colonel who finally solved the problem, which had cost him much perplexed cogitation.
  12. vouchsafe
    grant in a condescending manner
    The sole comment vouchsafed by him very nearly led to a serious quarrel with Eliza. It was to the effect that she would have in Freddy an ideal errand boy.
  13. puissant
    powerful
    It shook her so violently, that when Mr. H. G. Wells lifted her on the point of his puissant pen, and placed her at the angle of view from which the life she was leading and the society to which she clung appeared in its true relation to real human needs and worthy social structure, he effected a conversion and a conviction of sin comparable to the most sensational feats of General Booth or Gypsy Smith.
  14. languish
    experience prolonged suffering in an unpleasant situation or place
    It exasperated her to think that the dungeon in which she had languished for so many unhappy years had been unlocked all the time, and that the impulses she had so carefully struggled with and stifled for the sake of keeping well with society, were precisely those by which alone she could have come into any sort of sincere human contact.
  15. nomenclature
    a system of words used to name things in a discipline
    It was very little, but enough to make him appear to her a Porson or Bentley, and to put him at his ease with botanical nomenclature.
Created on Mon Feb 09 15:50:00 EST 2015 (updated Fri Aug 01 18:16:27 EDT 2025)

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