couplet

[ kuhp-lit ]

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.

couplet

/ ˈkʌplɪt /

noun

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

couplet

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.

Word History and Origins

Origin of couplet¹

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of couplet¹

C16: from French, literally: a little pair; see couple

Example Sentences

The Brooklyn rapper and skateboarder Sage Elsesser, who goes by Navy Blue, raps with a cool patience, his lyrics spilling out not so much in couplets as amorphous word clouds.

From Time

Jumping from couplets to capitalism, Alphonso, or at least its concentrated pulp, has starred for a decade alongside the waiting, pining, aching Bollywood beauty, Katrina Kaif, in a series of TV commercials for a popular mango drink made by Pepsi.

From Ozy

Okay, the GPT-3 hype seems pretty reasonableBut say you had it generate rhyming couplets with Shakespeare and Pope as examples.

From TechCrunch

Haiku are fine — 5-7-5, please — but I’ll also accept limericks and rhyming couplets.

From Washington Post

Shockingly, this last couplet made it into the 1953 film version; someone was napping over at MGM.

From The Daily Beast

Did they ever consider selecting the first line of this couplet for the title of their edition?

From The Daily Beast

China's use of these beasts always reminds me of a couplet I read years ago in a newspaper column.

From The Daily Beast

The commonest stanza is a quatrain consisting of four heptasyllabic lines with the rhyme at the end of the couplet.

From Project Gutenberg

In a couplet of passionate melancholy she asked, where are the roses of yesterday?

From Project Gutenberg

John Briggs never took a dare, and at noon, when Mr. Cross was at home at dinner, he wrote flamingly the descriptive couplet.

From Project Gutenberg

That was the name they had given him; he could hear the night crowds shouting it in a silly couplet: Il nous faut-oBeau Cocono-o!

From Project Gutenberg

The reading of each couplet by the minister before it was sung seemed to him a sort of recitative.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• verse