Unit 4: The Tragedy of Macbeth, Acts 4–5

10 words 352 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. pernicious
    exceedingly harmful
    Let this pernicious hour
    Stand aye accursed in the calendar!
  2. homely
    plain and unpretentious
    If you will take a homely man’s advice,
    Be not found here
  3. impediment
    something immaterial that interferes with action or progress
    ...and my desire
    All continent impediments would o’erbear
    That did oppose my will.
  4. stanch
    stop the flow of a liquid
    With this, there grows
    In my most ill-compos’d affection such
    A stanchless avarice that, were I king,
    I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
    Desire his jewels, and this other’s house,
    And my more-having would be as a sauce
    To make me hunger more
  5. abjure
    formally reject or disavow a formerly held belief
    But God above
    Deal between thee and me! for even now
    I put myself to thy direction, and
    Unspeak mine own detraction; here abjure
    The taints and blames I laid upon myself,
    For strangers to my nature.
  6. doff
    remove
    Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland
    Would create soldiers, make our women fight,
    To doff their dire distresses.
  7. taint
    contaminate with a disease or microorganism
    Till Birnan wood remove to Dunsinane
    I cannot taint with fear.
  8. ague
    chills and fever that are symptomatic of malaria
    Our castle’s strength
    Will laugh a siege to scorn; here let them lie
    Till famine and the ague eat them up.
  9. harbinger
    something indicating the approach of something or someone
    Make all our trumpets speak, give them all breath,
    Those clamorous harbingers of blood and death.
  10. usurper
    one who wrongfully seizes and holds the place of another
    Hail, King! for so thou art. Behold where stands
    Th’ usurper’s cursed head
Created on Tue Mar 09 09:44:18 EST 2021 (updated Tue Mar 16 14:07:03 EDT 2021)

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.