catalectic
Sign in to saveA catalectic line is a metrically incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot. One form of catalexis is headlessness, where the unstressed syllable is dropped from the beginning of the line.
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- stylistic device
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- different from
- catalepsy
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Encyclopedic overview
9 sectionsContents
- In English
- Blunt and pendant catalexis
- Quantitative metres
- In ancient Greek
- In Latin poetry
- In classical Persian
- Catalexis in music
- See also
- References
A catalectic line is a metrically incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot. One form of catalexis is headlessness, where the unstressed syllable is dropped from the beginning of the line.
A line missing two syllables is called brachycatalectic. A line with an additional syllable is called hypercatalectic.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “catalectic” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.