impetuous
Impetuous can also mean "characterized by undue haste and lack of thought" (a synonym for rash). This would make the battle between Lear and Mother Nature seem almost like justice because a rash man is being thrashed by a rash wind. But in the example sentence, the words blasts, rage and fury connect to violence and to the idea of an impetus, which is a force that moves something (e.g. Lear's white hairs) along.
Contending with the fretful elements;
Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea
Or swell the curlèd waters ’bove the main,
That things might change or cease; tears his white hair,
Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage
Catch in their fury and make nothing of;
Strives in his little world of man to outscorn
The to-and-fro conflicting wind and rain.
rotundity
You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head. And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ th’ world.
pernicious
Here I stand your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That will with two pernicious daughters join
Your high-engendered battles ’gainst a head
So old and white as this.
covert
Caitiff, to pieces shake,
That under covert and convenient seeming
Has practiced on man’s life.
heretic
When nobles are their tailors’ tutors,
No heretics burned but wenches’ suitors,
When every case in law is right,
No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
...
Then shall the realm of Albion
Come to great confusion.
malady
But where the greater malady is fix'd,
The lesser is scarce felt.
filial
...filial ingratitude!
Is it not as this mouth should tear this hand
For lifting food to ’t? But I will punish home.
quagmire
Who gives anything to Poor Tom, whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and quagmire...
injunction
My duty cannot suffer
T’ obey in all your daughters’ hard commands.
Though their injunction be to bar my doors
And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,
Yet have I ventured to come seek you out
And bring you where both fire and food is ready.
importune
Importune him once more to go, my lord.
censure
Edmund is pretending to be afraid of censure in order to get Cornwall's trust and protection. But the consequences of Edmund's betrayals will be a lot harsher than a formal rebuke. In the example sentence, nature does not refer to either Mother Nature or Edmund's nature; it refers to the natural bond between a father and a child which, as Gloucester's illegitimate second son, Edmund never felt and has no trouble betraying in order to get what he thinks he deserves.
How, my lord, I may be censured, that nature thus gives way to loyalty, something fears me to think of.
dally
Take up thy master.
If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life,
With thine and all that offer to defend him,
Stand in assurèd loss.
defile
Mark the high noises, and thyself bewray
When false opinion, whose wrong thoughts defile thee,
In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee.
reconcile
Mark the high noises, and thyself bewray
When false opinion, whose wrong thoughts defile thee,
In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee.
pinion
Go seek the traitor Gloucester.
Pinion him like a thief; bring him before us.
