heroic couplet

American  

noun

Prosody.

1. a stanza consisting of two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter, especially one forming a rhetorical unit and written in an elevated style, as, Know then thyself, presume not God to scan / The proper study of Mankind is Man.

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heroic couplet British  

noun

1. prosody a verse form consisting of two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter

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Etymology

Origin of heroic couplet

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

At the approach of the 18th century, John Dryden offered Virgil as a master of the heroic couplet: "Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate,/ And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate."

From Time Magazine Archive

The normal type, as it may almost be called, of English versification is the metre of ten-syllabled rhymed lines designated as heroic couplet.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 6 "Coucy-le-Château" to "Crocodile" by Various

He chose the heroic couplet, and in handling it reversed the settled practice of more than a century.

From Life of John Keats His Life and Poetry, his Friends, Critics and After-fame by Colvin, Sidney

The virtues of blank verse are the virtues of rhythmic prose, which is still freer and more natural than blank verse, just as blank verse is preferable to the heroic couplet.

From The Literature of Ecstasy by Mordell, Albert

French verse, decasyllabic, 177f.; influence on heroic couplet, 187, 190; perfect rime in,  121 n.; regular cesura in, 17, 18; influence on octosyllabic couplet, 154, 160f.,

From English Verse Specimens Illustrating its Principles and History by Alden, Raymond MacDonald