Vocabulary in Waiting for Godot

Homeless wanderers with no fixed address or steady work, drifting from place to place. In this play the word carries its older sense of down-and-out vagabonds living on the margins of society.

Bleak, empty, and without any sign of life or comfort. The road where the two men wait is utterly bare and forsaken, with nothing to break the monotony.

With one leg on each side of something, as if straddling it. Here it describes the position of a person giving birth while standing over a grave, collapsing birth and death into a single image.

Shines briefly and faintly before disappearing. In this line it stands for the tiny, flickering span of a human life between two darknesses.

An extremely short moment of time, almost no time at all. The phrase emphasises how brief and fragile human existence is compared with the surrounding darkness.

Argue repeatedly about small, petty things without ever settling anything. Vladimir and Estragon quarrel constantly in this way to fill the empty hours of waiting.

Impossible to follow because the words and ideas are jumbled together without clear logic or order. Lucky's long speech tumbles from one fragment to the next with no coherent thread.

A long, uninterrupted speech delivered by one character while others listen. Lucky's speech is the play's most extreme example, pouring out in a torrent of tangled language.

Unable or unwilling to speak; completely silent. In Act II Lucky no longer utters a single word, in stark contrast to his torrential speech in Act I.

Vague, unclear, and difficult to recall with any confidence. The characters' memories of the previous day are so unreliable that they can barely agree on what happened.

Completely empty and bare, producing nothing and offering nothing. The country road setting is stripped of any vegetation, colour, or sign of life.

Produced new growth, as a plant puts out fresh buds or leaves. The tree's few new leaves are the only physical evidence that a night has passed between the two acts.