dactyl
- noun
- /ˈdæk.tɪl/
- Literature
:
dáctilo
- The rhythm of the piece alternates between dactyls and anapests, showcasing the poet's skillful use of meter.
Examples
-
No less so, trochees overturn iambs in a poetic line, or dactyls and anapests add abruptive tensions to blank verse regularity.
Academic text (2008) -
Next, the matter of rhyme schemes, rhythmics, dactyls, anapests, spondees?
Fiction book (1995) -
But he also falls into a line of metrists and poets who have objected to the dactyl in English.
Academic text (2016) -
The Spanish tongue was what she loved to speak and teach, and centuries ago its subsoil had been mined by the real poets, whose dactyls, trochees, and hendecasyllables she taught every day to set the rhythms of the language in her students' minds.
Fiction book (1996) -
In the poem, the line begins with a dactyl, creating a lively rhythm that enhances its emotional impact.
-
Students often find it challenging to identify a dactyl in a verse when compared to other metrical feet.
Surface Forms
Etymology
Dactyl as a poetic term also comes from Greek daktylos 'finger'. A helpful way to remember it is to think of one strong beat followed by two weak beats, like a finger with one long part and two short parts, so a dactyl in poetry is one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.
