anapest

Or ��·��·�貹��

[an-uh-pest]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

Prosody.

a foot of three syllables, two short followed by one long in quantitative meter, and two unstressed followed by one stressed in accentual meter, as in for the nonce.

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Other Word Forms

anapestic adjective
anapaestic adjective
anapestically adverb
anapaestically adverb

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Word History and Origins

Origin of anapest¹

1580–90; < Latin anapaestus < Greek ��á�貹��ٴǲ� struck back, reversed (as compared with a dactyl), equivalent to ana- ana- + pais- (variant stem of �貹í�𾱲� to strike) + -tos past participle suffix

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Not that one needs to know an anapest from a trochee to enjoy the genre.

From

Five iambs and an anapest was the beat he tramped to now.

From

It was a metrically auspicious birth date — the spondee “ONE, TEN” resounding like slaps on a baby’s bottom, the anapest “twenty-EIGHT” hurtling toward the future.

From

“Electron” was the word she settled on to describe herself, emphasizing the last syllable, the word drawn out into a Gallic anapest.

From

Pertaining to an anapest; consisting of an anapests; as, an anapestic meter, foot, verse.

From

anapaest anaphase

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