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Glite Dictionary
📏 A measurer 📖 A rhythm expert 🔌 A meter reader
metrist

metrist

9.8
A person who studies the rhythm of poems
  • noun
  • /ˈmɛtrɪst/
  • Literature
translation icon : métrico
  • A metrist analyzes the rhythm of Shakespeare's sonnets to understand their structure.
  • a generative metrist

Examples

  • But he also falls into a line of metrists and poets who have objected to the dactyl in English.

    Academic text (2016)

  • The detailed scales of "tensional" effects claimed by generative metrists and metrical phonologists for their versificational constructs have also been proved erroneous.

    Academic text (1993)

  • Many metrists believe that the use of iambic pentameter enhances the emotional impact of a poem.

  • As a metrist, she published several articles on the importance of meter in contemporary poetry.

Synonyms

scanner
vsmetrist
  • Literature
3 9.9

A person who marks the stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem

uses wider study and writing of rhythmic structure, not only syllable analysis
metrician
vsmetrist
  • Literature
9.9

A person who studies and explains the rhythm of poems

focuses on analyzing or writing about rhythmic structure rather than composing
prosodist
vsmetrist
  • Specialized
9.9

A person who studies patterns of rhythm and sound in speech and poetry

focuses specifically on poetic rhythmic structure rather than broader speech patterns

Surface Forms

metrist singular
metrists plural

Morphology

metrist = meter (transparent) = meter + ist

Clear specialist noun formed from "meter" plus "-ist", referring to a person concerned with poetic meter.

Etymology

Metrist comes from the old Greek metron meaning 'measure' and the ending -ist meaning 'a person who does something'. So a metrist in poetry studies the poem's meter, the pattern of beats or rhythm, and explains how it makes the lines sound.