Oedipus the King: Terms (pages 5-14)

Oedipus the King: Terms

Pages 5-14

Book: The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles (a revised and updated translation by Paul Roche)

(A list of terms and definitions during the reading I found useful in looking up):

TERMS

Scions: a descendant

Thronging: a multitude of people crowded or assembled together

Elegiac:

1) Used in, suitable for, or resembling an elegy

2) Expressing sorrow or lamentation: elegiac strains

Elegy: a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.

Lamentation: The act of expressing sorrow or grief.

Palls:

1) A cloth, often velvet, for spreading over a coffin/tomb

2) A coffin

3) Anything that covers, shrouds, or overspreads, especially with darkness or gloom

Petitioners: a request made for something desired, especially a respectful or humble request, as to a superior or to one of those in authority; a supplication or prayer: a petition for aid; a petition to God for courage and strength

Sovereign: Supreme ruler (a person or a group of people)

Fledglings:

1) A young bird just fledged

2) an inexperienced person

Fledge: to bring up (a young bird) until it is able to fly

Essaying:

1) to make an attempt at; try

2) an initial attempt or endeavour, especially a tentative attempt

Stripling: an adolescent youth

Oracles:(especially in ancient Greece) an utterance, often ambiguous or obscure, given by a priest or priestess 
at a shrine as the response of a god to an inquiry.

Prow:

1) the forepart of a ship or boat; bow

2) Literary: a ship

Ineffectual: powerless, impotent, futile

Omnipotent:

1) Almighty or infinite in power, as God

2) Having very great of unlimited authority or power

Suppliants: a person that supplicates; petitioner

Supplicate: to pray humbly; make humble and earnest entreaty or petition

Consummate: to bring to a state or perfection; fulfill

Disenthralled: to free from bondage; liberate: to be disenthralled from morbid fantasies.

Prowess:

1) exceptional valour, bravery, or ability, especially in combat or battle.

2) exceptional or superior ability, skill, or strength: his prowess as a public speaker.

Buoyancy: the power to float or rise in a fluid; relative lightness.

Treble:

1) threefold; triple.

2) high in pitch; shrill.

Covenant: an agreement, usually formal, between two or more persons to do or not do something specified.

Effulgent: shining forth brilliantly; radiant.

Chaplets: a wreath or garland for the head/a string of beads.

Battens:

1) to thrive by feeding; grow fat.

2) to feed gluttonously or greedily; glut oneself.

Brigands: a bandit, especially one of a band of robbers in mountain or forest regions.

Dactylic: of, containing, or characterized by dactyls: dactylic hexameter; a dactylic line.

Dactyl:

1) Prosody. a foot of three syllables, one long followed by two short in quantitative meter, or one stressed followed by two unstressed in accentual meter, as in gently and humanly.

2) a finger or toe.

Trochees: a foot of two syllables, a long followed by a short in quantitative meter, or a stressed followed by an unstressed in accentualmeter.a foot of two syllables, a long followed by a short in quantitative meter, or a stressed followed by an unstressed in accentual meter.

Iambs: a foot of two syllables, a short followed by a long in quantitative meter, or an unstressed followed by a stressed in accentual meter, as in Come live / with me / and be / my love.

Clinch: to settle (a matter) decisively

Tremulous:

1) (of persons, the body, etc.) characterized by trembling, asfrom fear, nervousness, or weakness.

2) timid; timorous; fearful.

3) (of things) vibratory, shaking, or quivering.

4) (of writing) done with a trembling hand.

Cipher:

1) zero

2) a person of no influence; nonentity

3) something of no value/importance

Matrons:

1) a married woman, especially one who is mature and staid or dignified and has an established social position.

2) a woman who has charge of the domestic affairs of a hospital, prison, or other institution.

3) a woman serving as a guard, warden, or attendant for women or girls, as in a prison.

Headlong:

1) with the head foremost; headfirst: to plunge headlong into the water.

2) without delay; hastily: to plunge headlong into work.

3) without deliberation; rashly: to rush headlong into battle.

Xanthic: of or pertaining to a yellow or yellowish color.

Succor:

1) help; relief; aid; assistance.

2) a person or thing that gives help, relief, aid, etc.