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

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

Thus Cellini wrote his poem called I Carceri in terza rima, and Giovanni Santi used it for his precious but unpoetical Chronicle of Italian affairs.

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