quatrain
noun
qua·train ˈkwä-ˌtrān 
kwä-ˈtrān
: a unit or group of four lines of verse
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the Web The poem’s tercets evoke an uneasy balance, until the fourth stanza, where a quatrain appears, suspending time for just a little bit longer, like those who leaped from the burning floors. 
New York Times, 8 Sep. 2022 This week: Write a quatrain or — heck — two of Balliol rhyme about some person. Washington Post, 20 Feb. 2020 The three quatrains develop an idea or theme, and the final couplet puts forth a conclusion, a summary, an application, a narrowing of focus or even a surprise reversal. Richard Lederer, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Sep. 2019 There’s a quatrain of film adaptation news this week. Hayden Dingman, PCWorld, 24 May 2019 This example stitches poem (identified by the frame of quatrains) to prose (identified by the four lines inhabited by Absence). Lauren Russell, New York Times, 13 Oct. 2017 Kazemi, working under the name Tiny Subversions, also created the Harry Potter-themed , which generated rhyming quatrains that placed followers into a Hogwarts house. Adam Davidson, The New Yorker, 6 Mar. 2017 Here is the first quatrain of that poem:That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. The New Yorker, 23 Apr. 2016 See More
New York Times, 8 Sep. 2022 This week: Write a quatrain or — heck — two of Balliol rhyme about some person. Washington Post, 20 Feb. 2020 The three quatrains develop an idea or theme, and the final couplet puts forth a conclusion, a summary, an application, a narrowing of focus or even a surprise reversal. Richard Lederer, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Sep. 2019 There’s a quatrain of film adaptation news this week. Hayden Dingman, PCWorld, 24 May 2019 This example stitches poem (identified by the frame of quatrains) to prose (identified by the four lines inhabited by Absence). Lauren Russell, New York Times, 13 Oct. 2017 Kazemi, working under the name Tiny Subversions, also created the Harry Potter-themed , which generated rhyming quatrains that placed followers into a Hogwarts house. Adam Davidson, The New Yorker, 6 Mar. 2017 Here is the first quatrain of that poem:That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. The New Yorker, 23 Apr. 2016 See More Word History
Etymology
Middle French, from quatre four, from Latin quattuor
First Known Use
1584, in the meaning defined above