MACBETH 1969 Glossary 

Adder’s fork: The venomous snake’s tongue

Air-drawn: Drawn in air, imaginary

Augur: A prophet, a soothsayer, to prophecy

Beelzebub: The Devil

Beldam or beldame: Grandmother

Blind-worm: Slow worm, a limbless reptile native to Eurasia, related to lizards 

Bodement: Presage, foretelling, omen, portent, augury 

Brinded: Spotted (adjective)

Cabin’d: Confined

Cawdor: Name of a Scottish thanedom or county

Charnel-house: A place where the bones of the dead are deposited; a burial vault

Chaudron or Chawdron: Entrails

Chuck: Diminutive of “chicken,” used as a term of endearment

Chough: The bird of Corvus monedula, a jackdaw

Colmekill or Icolmkill: The famous Iona, one of the Western Isles, where the ancient kings of Scotland were buried

Cream-faced: White, pale

Cribb’d: Caged

Cyme: The name of a laxative; plant that induces vomiting

Demi-wolf: A mongrel dog between a dog and a wolf

Epicure: A man given to luxury; a pleasure seeker, a glutton; a follower of Epicurus

Farrow: Litter of pigs, or piglet

Fenny: Born and bred in a bog

Firstling: The first produced or first offspring

Gall: Bile, bitterness of mind

Gallowglass: Heavy-armed foot soldier of Ireland and the western isles; axe-wielding Irish soldier

Germens: Germs, seeds, life-forming elements

Gibbet: To hang [upon], a gallows

Glamis: Name of a Scottish thanedom or county

Golgotha: The place of execution in Ancient Palestine 

Gorgon: The common name of three fabulous women with snaky hair, the sight of whom turned beholders to stone; Medusa was a Gorgon

Gulf: Anything absorbing, a gullet, a swallow; huge stomach, voracious gut

Hedge-pig: A young hedgehog

Hell-broth: Infernal porridge

Hell-kite: Kite (bird of prey) of infernal breed

Hurly-burly: Uproar, tumult, commotion, turmoil

Hyrcan: Hyrcanian, pertaining to Hyrcania, a country on the Caspian Sea

Intrenchant: Not to be cut, indivisible, invulnerable

Jocund: Lively, mirthful, in high spirits

Kern or Kerne: an Irish soldier; lightly-armed Irish foot soldier

Kite: A bird of prey, a thieving bird, message of ill omen; term of reproach

Knell: The sound of a bell rung at a funeral, a bell tolling; omen of death

Lily-liver’d: Cowardly

Loon: A sorry fellow, a brute; rogue, sluggard, worthless idiot

Magot-pie: Magpie, a bird in the crow family 

Maw: Stomach, specifically an animal’s; throat, gullet

Niggard: A miser, skinflint, mean person

Nonpareil: One who has no equal

Nose-painting: Making the nose red

Palter: To shift, to dodge, to shuffle, to equivocate; quibble, prevaricate, evade

Parricide: The murder of one’s father

Rook: A kind of crow

Rooky: Full of crows; misty, gloomy

Saucy: Impudent, insolent

Shoal: A shallow

Shough: A kind of shaggy dog

Thane: An old Scottish title of honor, a near equivalent to Earl

Treble Scepters: Three scepters

Water-rug: A kind of poodle

Weal: Commonwealth, body politic, state

Yeasty: Frothy, superficial, trivial, foam of water