couplet

American  

[kuhp-lit] / ˈkʌp lɪt /

noun

couplets plural

1. a pair of successive lines of verse, especially a pair that rhyme and are of the same length.

2. a pair; couple.

3. Music. any of the contrasting sections of a rondo occurring between statements of the refrain.

---

couplet British  

/ ˈkʌplɪt /

noun

1. two successive lines of verse, usually rhymed and of the same metre

---

couplet Cultural  

1. A pair of lines of verse that rhyme. Some poems, such as “The Night Before Christmas,” are written entirely in couplets:

   `Twas the night before Christmas , when all through the house

   Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

   The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

   In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

---

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• couplets
  plural

Etymology

Origin of couplet

From Middle French, dating back to 1570–80; see origin at couple, -et

Explanation

A couplet is two lines of poetry that usually rhyme. Here's a famous couplet: "Good night! Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow / That I shall say good night till it be morrow." The couplet above comes from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which is a play, not a poem. But Shakespeare often used rhyming couplets at the end of scenes to signal the ending. Couplets are very common in poetry. Often whole poems are written in couplet form — two lines of rhyming poetry, followed by two more lines with a different rhyme, and so on. Robert Frost, one of America's great poets, wrote many poems using couplets.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

couplet couplets

So fullness of that scene did have to be compressed down to that little couplet.

From Salon ● Aug. 12, 2024

But “Lip Service” by Costello and the Attractions has the all-time classic couplet: “When did you become so choosy? Don’t act like you’re above me, just look at your shoes.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2023

Is it said that the comic poet Ogden Nash, noting the hiring practices of a certain founder of Universal Pictures, once wrote the couplet “Uncle Carl Laemmle/has a very big faemmle.”

From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2023

By 2012's All Too Well, she was capable of writing this devastating couplet: "You call me up again just to break me like a promise / So casually cruel in the name of being honest."

From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2022

I had completely forgotten that after the wedding ceremony Arabella and the medical prince link arms and, speaking in unison, step forward to address to the audience a final couplet.

From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan

The series’ musical landscape also includes a myriad of folk songs, such as the drunken tavern tune “Alice With Three Fingers” and the childish rhyming couplets of “The Hammer and the Anvil.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 16, 2026

She planned to hang traditional Chinese couplets -- usually on auspicious red paper -- before sharing a family meal.

From Barron's ● Feb. 13, 2026

On Chinese social media, pictures show some users sticking couplets or upside down pictures of Malfoy's signature smirk.

From BBC ● Feb. 4, 2026

The chapters are arranged like the bayts, or couplets, of a ghazal, and they describe a succession of infatuations, some romantic and some purely poetic, as in the odes to the 14th-century Persian lyricist Hafez.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025

I hated the very idea of the eighteenth century, with all those smug men writing tight little couplets and being so dead keen on reason.

From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath

Related Words

• verse