Anoint: to smear or rub with oil or an oily substance; to apply oil to as part of a religious ceremony; to choose by or as if by divine intervention

Apparition: an unusual or unexpected sight; a ghostly figure; the act of becoming visible

Arrant: being notoriously without moderation

Arras: a wall hanging or screen of tapestry

Assay: to analyze for one or more specific components; to judge the worth of; try, attempt

Aught: anything, everything

Baser: lesser, base


Befit: to be proper or becoming to

Beseech: to beg for urgently or anxiously

Beshrew: to curse

Bethought: remember, recall

Beteem: grant, allow, permit

Bier: a stand on which a corpse or coffin is placed; a framework for carrying

Bodkin: a dagger

Calumny: a misrepresentation intended to harm another’s reputation; the act of uttering false charges or misrepresentations maliciously calculated to harm another’s reputation

Cap-a-pie: from head to foot

Capons: a castrated male chicken

Cerement: a shroud for the dead

Courtier: one in attendance at a royal court; one who practices flattery

Cozenage: the art or practice of fraud

Credent: confiding in someone

Declension: a falling off or away; descent or slope

Down-gyved: hanging down like shackles

Ducats: a former European gold coin

Enseamed: sewn in

Equivocation: deliberate evasiveness in wording; the use of ambiguous language

Felicity: the quality or state of being happy

Fie: used to express disgust or disapproval

Filial: relating to a son or daughter


Flagon: a large metal or pottery vessel with a handle and spouter


Gall: brazen boldness often with brash self confidence

Gentry: upper or ruling class

Gibes: to utter taunting words


Hecate: a greek goddess associated with the underworld, night, and witchcraft

Hecuba: The wife of Priam in Homer’s Iliad and The Aeneid

Hebona: a plant having a poisonous juice

Hugger-mugger: secrecy, confusion, muddle

Hymen: the greek god of marriage

Hyperion: a Titan and the father of Eos, Selene, and Helios

Importune: to press or urge with troublesome persistence

Impotence: weakness

Impostume: an abscess

Incorporal: having no material body or form

Jointress: a woman having a legal estate

Jove: Jupiter, used interjectionally to express surprise or add emphasis

Knaves: a tricky deceitful fellow

Leprous: infected with leprosy; a morally or spiritually harmful influence

Lenten: suitable for lent

Lief: dear, believed, willing, glad


Neptune: the roman god of the sea

Nero: a roman emperor whose mother was murdered

Niobe: a woman who while weeping for her slain children is turned into a stone from which her tears continue to flow

Obsequious: marked by or exhibiting a fawning attentiveness

Operant: functioning or tending to produce effects; effective


Phoebus: another name for Apollo, the Greek god of the sun

Pyrrhus: son of Achilles and slayer of Priam at the taking of Troy

Repose: a state or place of rest

Rhenish: a type of wine from Western Europe


Rheum: a watery discharge from the eyes or nose

Sables: black clothing worn in mourning


Sexton: a church officer or employee who takes care of the property; gravedigger

Sith: variant of since

Sully: to make soiled or tarnished

Suppliance: entreaty; a plea

Supposal: the act or process of supposing; hypothesis

Surmise: a thought or idea based on little evidence


Tellus: the ancient Roman goddess of the Earth

Treble: a high-pitched or shrill voice; having three parts or uses

Truncheon: a baton, club, bludgeon

Twain: two, a pair

Unsmirched: not dirty, stained, or discolored

Visage: the face or appearance of a person

Wanton: merciless, inhumane, having no just foundation or provocation

Wonted: usual or ordinary especially by reason of established habit

Wormwood: something bitter or grievous


*All definitions found through Merriam-Webster