sprung rhythm

American

noun

a poetic rhythm characterized by the use of strongly accented syllables, often in juxtaposition, accompanied by an indefinite number of unaccented syllables in each foot, of which the accented syllable is the essential component.

sprung rhythm British

noun

prosody a type of poetic rhythm characterized by metrical feet of irregular composition, each having one strongly stressed syllable, often the first, and an indefinite number of unstressed syllables

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of sprung rhythm

Term introduced by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1877)

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.

Dana: Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem “Pied Beauty” for its delightful sprung rhythm and many “dappled things—”

From Slate • Feb. 26, 2014

He sold these advanced ideas through the startling sprung rhythm of his prose, packing an essay's worth of insights into a parenthetical aside, leaving the alert reader exhausted and grateful.

From Time Magazine Archive

A contemporary copy in A has this note: 'Written in sprung rhythm, the third line has 3 beats, the rest 4.

From Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins Now First Published by Bridges, Robert Seymour

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023