couplet

American  

[kuhp-lit] / ˈkʌp lɪt /

noun

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.

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couplet British  

/ ˈkʌplɪt /

noun

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

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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.

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Etymology

Origin of couplet

From Middle French, dating back to 1570–80; 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

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

From Salon • Aug. 12, 2024

“My heart stopped beating long ago / It pours out like a river,” one couplet goes.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 26, 2024

As she read the rhyming couplet inscribed in a large clay jar made before the Civil War, the 84-year-old Northeast D.C. resident could feel pain and loneliness in the anguished voice of her enslaved ancestor.

From Washington Post • Apr. 2, 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

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

Related Words

• verse