sestina
[se-stee-nuh]
noun, plural ses·ti·nas, ses·ti·ne [se-stee-ney] /sɛˈsti neɪ/. Prosody.
a poem of six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy, originally without rhyme, in which each stanza repeats the end words of the lines of the first stanza, but in different order, the envoy using the six words again, three in the middle of the lines and three at the end.
RELATED WORDS
rhyme, poetry, writing, verse, lyric, epic, composition, ballad, sonnet, song, beat, creation, poesy, rime, words, ode, limerick, lines, rune, haiku
Origin of sestina
Also called sextain.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for sestina
Historical Examples of sestina
The sestina is composed of six 6-line stanzas and a final 3-line stanza.
The Principles of English VersificationPaull Franklin Baum
Naught else have I afforded you, madame, save very anciently a Sestina.
ChivalryJames Branch Cabell
From Italy have come, besides the ottava rima and the sonnet, two other metrical forms, the sestina and the terza rima.
The Principles of English VersificationPaull Franklin Baum
The common form of the sestina has six stanzas of six lines each, with a tercet at the end.
English VerseRaymond MacDonald Alden, Ph.D.
That it was used and admired by Dante and Petrarch, alone gives the sestina a royal precedence over all of the other forms.
sestina
noun
Word Origin for sestina
C19: from Italian, from sesto sixth, from Latin sextus
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
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