trochee
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈtroʊki/
- Literature
- The word pharma is a trochee, a two-syllable foot with the stress on the first element.
Examples
-
The word trochee describes a poetic foot made up of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one.
-
No less so, trochees overturn iambs in a poetic line, or dactyls and anapests add abruptive tensions to blank verse regularity.
Academic text (2008) -
Mama and Papa are trochees.
Academic text (2016) -
(Divorce is an iamb; marriage is a trochee.)
Academic text (2016) -
There's something about the shape of the trochee that throws Big Pharma some shade.
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 line "Baa, baa, black sheep," the word trochee is exemplified with the stress on the first syllable.
-
Many classic poets relied on trochees to create memorable rhythms in their verses.
Surface Forms
Etymology
Trochee comes from the Greek word trochaîos, which means 'running' or 'a running step'. A helpful way to remember it is to imagine a quick running step in a line of poetry — a strong beat followed by a weak one — which is exactly why a trochee is a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.