common metre

British  

noun

1. a stanza form, used esp for hymns, consisting of four lines, two of eight syllables alternating with two of six

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

common metre

Ballads are more frequently written in common metre lines of eight and six syllables alternating.

From The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 by Various

This is the common metre for narrative, didactic, and descriptive poetry.

From A Handbook of the English Language by R. G. (Robert Gordon) Latham

Orchest. under διποδία, διαποδισμὸς ποδίκρα.1603.Perhaps it was connected with the trochaic dipodia, which appears to have been the common metre in these choral songs, though mixed with cretics, spondees, dactylic, and logaœdic verses.1604.Aristoph.

From The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race, Vol. 2 of 2 by Karl Otfried Müller

These thirty-seven tunes, all of which but one were in common metre, were bound often with "The Bay Psalm-Book."

From Sabbath in Puritan New England by Alice Morse Earle

The syllables are as in the common metre, but it has thrice the rhymes.

From Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry by T. W. (Thomas William) Rolleston