ottava rima

American  

[oh-tah-vuh ree-muh] / oʊˈtɑ və ˈri mə /

noun

• ottava rimas
  plural

1. an Italian stanza of eight lines, each of eleven syllables (or, in the English adaptation, of ten or eleven syllables), the first six lines rhyming alternately and the last two forming a couplet with a different rhyme: used in Keats' Isabella and Byron's Don Juan.

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ottava rima British  

/ ˈriːmə /

noun

1. prosody a stanza form consisting of eight iambic pentameter lines, rhyming a b a b a b c c

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• ottava rimas
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of ottava rima

1810–20; < Italian: octave rhyme

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ottava rima

Although an occasional narrative experiment might disrupt the format, what makes “Law & Order” special is precisely the fact that it has one, like a sonnet, a sestina, or an ottava rima.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 24, 2022

He bows gracefully to ottava rima, the sonnet and ballad.

From Time Magazine Archive

In 1596 Drayton published his long and important poem of Mortimerades, which deals with the Wars of the Roses, and is a very serious production in ottava rima.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 7 "Drama" to "Dublin" by Various

His longer poems in this kind, in modifications of ottava rima or Spenserian stanza, show Keats' influence very clearly.

From A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century by Henry A. (Henry Augustin) Beers

Gosnell wrote the ottava rima entitled "Daniel O'Rourke," which passed through three or four numbers of "Blackwood": he died not long afterwards in London, one of the many unhappy victims of misgoverned passions.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 by Various

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