dimeter

[ dim-i-ter ]

nounProsody.
  1. a verse or line of two measures or feet, as He is gone on the mountain,/He is lost to the forest.

Origin of dimeter

1
1580–90; <Late Latin dimeter<Greek dímetros of two measures, a dimeter, equivalent to di-di-1 + -metros, adj. derivative of métronmeter1

Words Nearby dimeter

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use dimeter in a sentence

  • The hind-men responded with a sing-song trochaic dimeter which sounded like a long-drawn-out monosyllable.

    The Unveiling of Lhasa | Edmund Candler
  • There are in both three series of iambuses—the dimeter, the cataleptic trimeter, and the acataleptic.

    Myth and Science | Tito Vignoli
  • Their rhyme, if not quite pure, is abundant and catching, and their nearest metrical affinity would be a trochaic dimeter.

  • He wrote two famous hymns, one of them in the popular trochaic tetrameter, the other in the equally simple iambic dimeter.

  • This verse is therefore the almost exact equivalent of the Greek iambic dimeter.

    A History of Sanskrit Literature | Arthur A. MacDonell

British Dictionary definitions for dimeter

dimeter

/ (ˈdɪmɪtə) /


noun
  1. prosody a line of verse consisting of two metrical feet or a verse written in this metre

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012