terza rima

American  

[tert-suh ree-muh, ter-tsah ree-mah] / ˈtɛrt sə ˈri mə, ˈtɛr tsɑ ˈri mɑ /

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.

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terza rima British  

/ 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

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Etymology

Origin of terza rima

1810–20; < Italian: third rhyme

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

terza rima

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.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 17, 2021

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

From New York Times ● Sep. 26, 2020

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.

From Time ● Nov. 9, 2016

It may be that music or film or terza rima is just better at it.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 1, 2016

To these may now be added Leonardo Dati's cosmographical history in octave stanzas, the Schiavo da Bari's aphorisms on morality, and Pucci's terza rima version of Villani's Chronicle.

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