anapest

Or an·a·paest

[an-uh-pest]

noun

Prosody.

1. a foot of three syllables, two short followed by one long in quantitative meter, and two unstressed followed by one stressed in accentual meter, as in for the nonce.

Other Word Forms

• anapestic adjective
• anapaestic adjective
• anapestically adverb
• anapaestically adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of anapest¹

1580–90; < Latin anapaestus < Greek anápaistos struck back, reversed (as compared with a dactyl), equivalent to ana- ana- + pais- (variant stem of paíein to strike) + -tos past participle suffix

Example Sentences

Not that one needs to know an anapest from a trochee to enjoy the genre.

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Five iambs and an anapest was the beat he tramped to now.

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It was a metrically auspicious birth date — the spondee “ONE, TEN” resounding like slaps on a baby’s bottom, the anapest “twenty-EIGHT” hurtling toward the future.

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“Electron” was the word she settled on to describe herself, emphasizing the last syllable, the word drawn out into a Gallic anapest.

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Pertaining to an anapest; consisting of an anapests; as, an anapestic meter, foot, verse.

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