enjambment

American  

[en-jam-muhnt, -jamb-] / ɛnˈdʒæm mənt, -ˈdʒæmb- /

noun

Prosody.

enjambments plural

1. the running on of the thought from one line, couplet, or stanza to the next without a syntactical break.

   Enjambment is a creative device of long standing, famously used by Homer, Shakespeare, and Eliot, among many other literary luminaries.

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enjambment British  

/ ɑ̃ʒɑ̃bmɑ̃, ɪnˈdʒæmmənt /

noun

1. prosody the running over of a sentence from one line of verse into the next

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• enjambed
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• enjambments
  plural

Etymology

Origin of enjambment

First recorded in 1830–40; from French enjambement, equivalent to enjamb(er) “to stride over, project, encroach” ( en- + -jamber, derivative of jambe “leg” + -ment ); see origin at en- ¹, jamb ¹, -ment

Explanation

When a phrase, a clause, or a sentence in a line of poetry doesn't finish at the line break but spills over into the next line, that's an enjambment. If you know French, you'll recognize the word jambe "leg" — an enjambment is like a leg striding from one line to the next. You can see that leap from one line into the next in T. S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land," where each of the first three lines ends with an enjambment: "April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

enjambment enjambments

She is, the argument goes, a poet for the moms and the mushy-hearted, for readers with no formalist inclinations, for those more interested in enjoyment than enjambment.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026

This being so, Leithauser’s chapters cover such seemingly ho-hum subjects as iambic pentameter, iambic tetrameter, the stanza, enjambment, rhyming and wordplay.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 27, 2022

And can we talk about some of the wildest enjambment in pop-music history?

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2021

Poetry, with its line breaks, enjambment, repetitions, and attention to language sounds is itself a kind of impediment to language that opens language up.

From Salon ● Feb. 28, 2021

The poem’s leaping form is one of forward-moving fragment and enjambment, of stepping toward and stepping around its chief subject: America.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 19, 2019

She treats the silences between sentences like enjambments; she uses them to bait us.

From Slate ● Jun. 7, 2013