Oedipus Rex
Vocabulary
Study Guide
Format: The vocabulary quiz will be worth 45 points: there will be 10
sentenced completion questions, 5 create your own sentences and 5 synonym
matching.
Know the following vocabulary from Oedipus Rex:
Pestilence – fatally contagious or infectious disease.
Expiation – act of atonement or reconciliation
Induce – persuade; lead on to some action, condition or belief
Invoke – call on; summon
Compulsion – compelling, driving force
Balk – obstinately refuse to move or act
Calumny – false malicious statement meant to hurt someone’s reputation
Contrivance – act of devising, scheming, or planning
Suborn - induce or instigate to do something illegal, especially to commit
perjury
Vexation – cause of annoyance or distress
Countenance – facial expression
Obstinacy – stubbornness; unreasonable determination to have one’s way
Despotic – autocratic; tyrannical; absolute
Knave – dishonest or deceitful person
Conjecture – guess; prediction made with incomplete evidence (as a verb) to
predict for incomplete evidence
Rankle – cause to have long-lasting anger, rancor, or resentment
Infamy – disgraceful or dishonorable act
Insolence – impudence; bold disrespect
Surfeit – excess; too great an amount or supply
Fettered – shackled or chained by the feet
Lineage – ancestry, family line
Suffice – be enough; be sufficient or adequate
Dirge – slow, sad song or poem expressing grief or mourning
Purge – cleanse of guilt, sin, or ceremonial defilement
Imprecation – act of invoking evil or cursing
Infamously – notoriously; disgracefully; scandalously
Reverence – treat with great respect, love and awe, as for something sacred
Vilely – sinfully, wickedly