terza rima

[tert-suh ree-muh, ter-tsah ree-mah]

noun

Prosody.

1. an Italian form of iambic verse consisting of eleven-syllable lines arranged in tercets, the middle line of each tercet rhyming with the first and last lines of the following tercet.

terza rima

/ ˈtɛətsə ˈriːmə /

noun

1. a verse form of Italian origin consisting of a series of tercets in which the middle line of one tercet rhymes with the first and third lines of the next

Word History and Origins

Origin of terza rima¹

1810–20; < Italian: third rhyme

Word History and Origins

Origin of terza rima¹

C19: from Italian, literally: third rhyme

Example Sentences

Jean Hollander, the author of several books of poetry, took on the translation of the verse — an already herculean task made more difficult by the challenge of re-creating Dante’s terza rima tercets in English.

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“So can I. But that passage is lovely and it’s because of the terza rima. The music of it. The trimeter tolls through that speech of Klytemnestra’s like a bell.”

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It’s written in rhymed triplets, a version of a form employed by the poets Chaucer and Dante called a terza rima.

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The stanzas moved to Dante’s terza rima, but the poem began in patois: “This is how, one sunrise, we cut down them canoes.”

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And Dante’s “Inferno,” The Divine Comedy’s first section, was a shout, in terza rima, against a storm of religious and political turmoil in medieval Florence.

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