anapest

American  

[an-uh-pest] / ˈæn əˌpɛst /

Or anapaest

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.

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Other Word Forms

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

Etymology

Origin of anapest

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.

From Seattle Times • Apr. 6, 2023

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.

From New York Times • Feb. 15, 2015

Neither did he gallop in wild anapest down the road to Lexington.

From Time Magazine Archive

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

From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan

In his youth he had commended Beza in some anapest verses; extolling him as one of the most zealous defenders of the truth: he afterwards retracted this elogium, and wished it buried in eternal oblivion.

From The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius Containing a Copious and Circumstantial History of the Several Important and Honourable Negotiations in Which He Was Employed; together with a Critical Account of His Works by Burigny, Jean Lévesque de