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.

---

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

---

Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• ottava rimas
  plural

Etymology

Origin of ottava rima

1810–20; < Italian: octave rhyme

Example Sentences

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

Besides the prose version, in which the lovers are called Ippolito de' Buondelmonti and Leonora de' Bardi, we have a poem in ottava rima, where the heroine's name becomes Dianora.

From Renaissance in Italy: Italian Literature Part 1 (of 2) by Symonds, John Addington

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

The versification of the "Faerie Queene" is based upon the ottava rima, made so popular in Italian poetry by Tasso and Ariosto.

From Six Centuries of English Poetry Tennyson to Chaucer by Baldwin, James