Most of the nobility in the play speak in iambic pentameter — ten syllables per line, five metrical feet or units. It can create rhythm and emphasis and highlight important ideas. For example, to show their sharp sense of panic and complicity in the murder scene, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth speak in short exchanges of iambic pentameter.

The witches often speak in trochaic tetrameter: four stressed syllables followed by an unstressed syllable. This chanting, rhythmic language is associated with evil and the supernatural. It creates a sense of unease and emphasises the reversal of iambs, which emphasises the unnatural order.

A paradox occurs when something contains two opposite ideas but its overall message is true. Macbeth contains many paradoxes. The witches' statement "Fair is foul and foul is fair" is a paradox spoken in the first act of the play.

A statement that can have more than one meaning and therefore lends itself to deliberate misinterpretation. Characters use equivocation to mislead others. Both Lady Macbeth and Macbeth use equivocation throughout the play.

Pathetic fallacy is when the weather reflects the emotions of characters or events in a text. In Macbeth, the weather often mirrors chaos and violence. Storms and thunder accompany murder and lightning, conveying their importance — as Lennox details in Act 2 Scene 3 — reflecting the disruption to the Great Chain of Being.

Imagery is visual language; symbols represent a particular idea or motif. Several images and symbols recur in the play: weather symbolises the disorder of Scotland, blood represents guilt, birds are omens, daggers represent betrayal, swords represent honour, and dead children symbolise fears about inheritance or innocence.

Exaggerated language used for dramatic effect. Shakespeare often uses hyperbolic language to show Macbeth's horror after he has murdered Duncan.

A warning or hint about future events in the play. Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking foreshadows her husband's descent into guilt-induced madness. The witches' apparitions also foreshadow the end of the play.

Dramatic irony is when the audience know more than characters onstage. For example, the audience knows that Macbeth will be named Thane of Cawdor before the witches prophesied this to Macbeth.

When a character speaks their thoughts aloud when alone on stage, allowing the audience to understand what the character is thinking or feeling. Macbeth has many soliloquies throughout the play which demonstrate his internal conflict between his ambition and his sense of morality.