Romeo and Juliet: Act 3

by William Shakespeare
Sparks fly when Romeo and Juliet meet, but their families are sworn enemies locked in an ancient feud. Learn these words from Shakespeare's classic tale of star-crossed love.

Here are links to our lists for the play: Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, Act 4, Act 5
15 words 25960 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. doublet
    a man's close-fitting jacket, worn during the Renaissance
    Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet before Easter?
  2. minstrel
    a singer of folk songs
    What, dost thou make us minstrels?
  3. forbear
    resist doing something
    Gentlemen, for shame forbear this outrage!
  4. effeminate
    lacking traits typically associated with men or masculinity
    O sweet Juliet,
    Thy beauty hath made me effeminate
    And in my temper softened valor’s steel.
  5. dexterity
    adroitness in using the hands
    Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point
    And, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats
    Cold death aside and with the other sends
    It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity
    Retorts it.
  6. amorous
    expressive of or exciting love or romance
    Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
    By their own beauties, or, if love be blind,
    It best agrees with night.
  7. garish
    tastelessly showy
    Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die,
    Take him and cut him out in little stars,
    And he will make the face of heaven so fine
    That all the world will be in love with night
    And pay no worship to the garish sun.
  8. bier
    a stand to support a corpse or a coffin prior to burial
    Vile earth to earth resign; end motion here,
    And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier.
  9. purgatory
    a temporary condition of torment or suffering
    There is no world without Verona walls
    But purgatory, torture, hell itself.
  10. carrion
    the dead and rotting body of an animal; unfit for human food
    More validity,
    More honorable state, more courtship lives
    In carrion flies than Romeo.
  11. denote
    be a sign or indication of
    Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
    The unreasonable fury of a beast.
  12. ado
    a great deal of fuss, concern, or commotion
    Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?
    We’ll keep no great ado: a friend or two.
  13. jocund
    full of or showing high-spirited merriment
    Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
    Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
  14. abhor
    feel hatred or disgust toward
    O, how my heart abhors
    To hear him named and cannot come to him
    To wreak the love I bore my cousin
    Upon his body that hath slaughtered him.
  15. absolve
    grant remission of a sin to
    Go in and tell my lady I am gone,
    Having displeased my father, to Lawrence’ cell
    To make confession and to be absolved.
Created on Thu Aug 22 14:34:18 EDT 2019 (updated Tue Jul 15 15:28:29 EDT 2025)

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