adjective
noun
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Etymology
Origin of dactylic
1580–90; < Latin dactylicus < Greek daktylikós. See dactyl, -ic
Vocabulary lists containing dactylic
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It is said that Meechan’s fellow satirist, Juvenal, issued a similar warning to ancient Greek critics, infuriated by his cavalier use of the dactylic hexameter, in the second century AD.
From The Guardian ● May 26, 2019
There were monkeypods, “planted as seedlings no taller than chives,” as Mr. Merwin wrote, in impeccable dactylic tetrameter, in an essay in “What Is a Garden?,” which centers on his work in Hawaii.
From New York Times ● Mar. 15, 2019
Written in sprightly dactylic couplets, The Gashlycrumb Tinies was inspired, said Gorey, by “those 19th century cautionary tales, I guess, though my book is punishment without misbehavior.”
From Slate ● Nov. 14, 2018
As such, it’s particularly difficult to adapt to dactylic hexameter, the waltzlike, oom-pah-pah meter of epic poetry, which the Romans inherited from the Greeks.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 8, 2018
‘With the principal lyric metres, the Sapphic and Alcaic, Horace had done what Vergil had accomplished with the dactylic hexameter, carried them to the highest point of which the foreign Latin tongue was capable.’
From Helps to Latin Translation at Sight by Edmund Luce
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