quadrisyllable

American  

[kwod-ruh-sil-uh-buhl] / ˈkwɒd rəˌsɪl ə bəl /

noun

1. a word of four syllables.

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Other Word Forms

• quadrisyllabic adjective
• quadrisyllabical adjective

Etymology

Origin of quadrisyllable

First recorded in 1650–60; quadri- + syllable

Example Sentences

The quadrisyllable has Joycean overtones: macneilehrer -- a run-on conjuring up two-headed television journalism, emanating from Washington and New York, dispassionate, in-depth and, in the words of one contributor, "gloriously boring."

From Time Magazine Archive

Note the quadrisyllable ending, and compare EP II ix 41-42 'quis non Antiphaten Laestrygona deuouet? aut quis / munifici mores improbet Alcinoi?'.

From The Last Poems of Ovid by Akrigg, Mark Bear

Of the twenty-one quadrisyllable verse-endings in the Ex Ponto, six involve proper nouns: II ii 76 Dalmatiae, ix 42 Alcinoi, the present passage, IV iii 54 Anticyra, viii 62 Oechalia, and ix 80 Danuuium.

From The Last Poems of Ovid by Akrigg, Mark Bear

But Alexandrides lengthens the word into a quadrisyllable, and calls it ὠάριον.

From The Deipnosophists, or Banquet of the Learned of Athen?us by Athen?us

A dactyl usually stands in the fourth place, and the fifth and sixth feet are generally made up of a quadrisyllable; as,— armātumque aurō circumspicit Ōrīōna. cāra deum subolēs, magnum Jovis incrēmentum.

From New Latin Grammar by Bennett, Charles E. (Charles Edwin)