octosyllabic
Americanadjective
noun
Etymology
Origin of octosyllabic
1765–75; < Late Latin octōsyllab ( us ) (< Greek, equivalent to oktō- octo- + -syllabos syllabic ) + -ic
Vocabulary lists containing octosyllabic
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.
“Olympic Athletes from Russia” is an octosyllabic mess that’s hard to say and hard to understand.
From Slate • Feb. 12, 2018
Metrically varied, the lines are mostly octosyllabic, and that count-of-eight seems fundamental, even where the audible syllable count is less, as in stanza three, line eight.
From The Guardian • Apr. 15, 2013
He was not afraid of the octosyllabic word.
From Time Magazine Archive
The added length is partly explained by meter: Mandeville's octosyllabic line is less capacious, as a rule, than La Fontaine's flexible one.
From Aesop Dress'd Or a collection of Fables by La Fontaine, Jean de
For they are almost all in octosyllabic couplets, a metre certainly later than the assonanced decasyllabics of the earliest Chansons.
From A Short History of French Literature by Saintsbury, George
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
