Some words I came across while doing research for an essay on jealousy and masculinity in The Winter’s Tale by Shakespeare. Definitions taken from Lexico.
Adumbrate: foreshadow OR overshadow OR indicate faintly OR represent in outline
Agalma: (rare) an image, representation, or emblem; specifically the image on a seal
Calumniate: Make false and defamatory statements about
Catachresis: the use of a word in an incorrect way, for example the use of mitigate for militate
Chthonic: relating to or inhabiting the underworld
Contention: heated disagreement OR an assertion, especially one maintained in argument
Contrition: the state of feeling remorseful and penitent OR (in the Roman Catholic Church) the repentance of past sins during or after confession
Cozen: (literary) trick or deceive OR obtain by deception
Demotic: Denoting or relating to the kind of language used by ordinary people; colloquial OR Relating to or denoting the form of modern Greek used in everyday speech and writing (katharevousa) OR relating to or denoting a simplified, cursive form of ancient Egyptian script, dating from c. 650 BC and replaced by Greek in the Ptolemaic period (hieratic) OR ordinary colloquial speech OR demotic Greek OR demotic Egyptian script
Diatribe: A forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something
Diffident: modest or shy because of lack of self-confidence
Epideictic: characterised by or designed to display rhetorical or oratorical skill
Ekphrasis/ecphrasis: The use of detailed description of a work of visual art as a literary device
Facetious: treating serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humour; flippant
Histrionic: Excessively theatrical or dramatic in character or style OR of or concerning actors or acting OR denoting a personality disorder marked by shallow volatile emotions and attention-seeking behaviour
Iconoclasm: the action of attacking or assertively rejecting cherished beliefs and institutions or established values and practices OR the rejection or destruction of religious images as heretical; the doctrine of iconoclasts
Ineffable: too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words OR not to be uttered
Ineluctable: unable to be resisted or avoided; inescapable
Imprecation: (formal) a spoken curse
Invective: insulting, abusive or highly critical language
Licentious: promiscuous and unprincipled in sexual matters
Oneiric: (formal) relating to dreams or dreaming
Pallid: (of a person’s face) pale, typically because of poor health OR lacking vigour or intensity; insipid
Prosopopoeia: a figure of speech in which an abstract thing is personified OR a figure of speech in which an imagined, absent, or dead person or thing is represented as speaking.
Renege: revoke OR go back on a promise, undertaking or contract
Sibylline: relating to or characteristic of a sybil; prophetic and mysterious
Sparagmos: The dismemberment of a victim, forming a part of some ancient rituals and represented in Greek myths and tragedies.
Thanatology: the scientific study of death and the practices associated with it, including the study of the needs of the terminally ill and their families
Thraldom: the state of being in someone’s power
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