Dactyl
A dactyl is a metrical foot with one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables in English verse, or one long syllable followed by two short syllables in quantitative Greek or Latin verse. Poets use dactyls to create a rolling, falling rhythm that can sound formal, lively, or comic, depending on the context.
Example
Sun on the hilltop was spilling its gold on the valley below
An example of dactylic meter is the first line of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Evangeline, which is in dactylic hexameter:
This is the / forest prim- / eval. The / murmuring / pines and the / hemlocks,
Related Definitions
[n] a finger or toe in human beings or corresponding part in other vertebrates
[n] a metrical unit with stressed-unstressed-unstressed syllables
Links
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Related Terms
accent, accentuation, Alexandrine, amphibrach, amphimacer, anacrusis, anapest, antispast, arsis, bacchius, beat, cadence, caesura, catalexis, chloriamb, chloriambus, colon, counterpoint, cretic, dactylic hexameter, diaeresis, dimeter, dipody, dochmiac, el