Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Having an extra syllable or syllables at the end of a metrically complete line of verse or in a metrical foot.
from The Century Dictionary.
- In prosody, having an additional syllable or half-foot (thesis or arsis) after the last complete dipody: as, a hypercatalectic colon or verse.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Pros.) Having a syllable or two beyond measure.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Which has an extra
syllable added to the lastdipody (foot of averse ).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (prosody) a line of poetry having an extra syllable or syllables at the end of the last metrical foot
- adjective (verse) having an extra syllable or syllables at the end of a metrically complete verse or in a metrical foot
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Mr Guest's rule, ending the verse, and where it would, consequently, make a hypercatalectic eleventh syllable, still be pronounced -- as
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 357, June, 1845 Various
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He explained to me most seriously the differences between trimeter Iambics when they were catalectic, acatalectic, hypercatalectic.
The Private Life of Henry Maitland Roberts, Morley, 1857-1942 1912
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The rhythm of the lines is marked, the effect upon the ear being quite like that of English iambic pentameters hypercatalectic.
Frederic Mistral Downer, Charles A 1901
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The normal line of which these quatrains are composed is a thirteen-syllabled one divided by a central pause, so that the first half is an iambic dimeter catalectic, and the second an iambic dimeter hypercatalectic.
The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) George Saintsbury 1889
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