trisyllabic

Updated: May 10, 2025

But he had mastered for himself, and by study of the originals, the secret of the Christabel metre, that is to say, the wide licence of equivalence in trisyllabic and dissyllabic feet, of metre catalectic or not, as need was, of anacrusis and the rest. As is natural to a novice, he rather exaggerates his liberties, especially in the cases where the internal rhyme seduces him.

George Saintsbury - Sir Walter Scott: Famous Scots Series

The Greek elegiac does not require any stop at the end of the couplet, nor does it affect any special ending; words of seven syllables or less are used by it indifferently. The trisyllabic ending, which is all but unknown to Ovid, occurs continually in Catullus; even the monosyllabic, which is altogether avoided by succeeding poets, occurs once.

Charles Thomas Cruttwell - The History of Roman Literature : From the earliest period to the death of Marcus Aurelius