Definition of tetrameter in English:
tetrameter
noun tɪˈtramɪtətɛˈtræmədər
Prosody A verse of four measures.
Example sentencesExamples
- It is written in rhymed tetrameters, the most artless of English metres and quite unlike the majestic blank verse of Prospero the magician.
- Merging narrative with her fondness for trochaic tetrameter, a variation on the swinging ‘pick rhythm’ that drives most work songs, Yancey revises the ballad tradition in the book's concluding selections.
- In this way of talking, the ballad stanza alternates tetrameters (four-foot lines) with trimeters (three-foot lines).
- The first and third line of every stanza is iambic tetrameter, and the second and fourth iambic trimeter; this gives it the usual metrical pattern of a hymn from the Anglican hymnal.
- Here is a sudden intensification, even a transposition of senses from the visual to the aural, in the word ‘silent,’ as the poem rounds off in an exact-rhyme couplet, iambic tetrameter stretching into iambic pentameter.
Origin
Early 17th century: from late Latin tetrametrus, from Greek tetrametros, from tetra- 'four' + metron 'measure'.
Rhymes
diameter, heptameter, hexameter, parameter, pentameter
Definition of tetrameter in US English:
tetrameter
nountɛˈtræmədərteˈtramədər
Prosody A verse of four measures.
Example sentencesExamples
- Here is a sudden intensification, even a transposition of senses from the visual to the aural, in the word ‘silent,’ as the poem rounds off in an exact-rhyme couplet, iambic tetrameter stretching into iambic pentameter.
- The first and third line of every stanza is iambic tetrameter, and the second and fourth iambic trimeter; this gives it the usual metrical pattern of a hymn from the Anglican hymnal.
- In this way of talking, the ballad stanza alternates tetrameters (four-foot lines) with trimeters (three-foot lines).
- Merging narrative with her fondness for trochaic tetrameter, a variation on the swinging ‘pick rhythm’ that drives most work songs, Yancey revises the ballad tradition in the book's concluding selections.
- It is written in rhymed tetrameters, the most artless of English metres and quite unlike the majestic blank verse of Prospero the magician.
Origin
Early 17th century: from late Latin tetrametrus, from Greek tetrametros, from tetra- ‘four’ + metron ‘measure’.