Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A unit of verse consisting of two successive lines, usually rhyming and having the same meter and often forming a complete thought or syntactic unit.
- noun Two similar things; a pair.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In Gothic arch., a double window; one having two lights only and these of the same size and style.
- noun In prosody, two lines in immediate succession, usually but not necessarily of the same length, forming a pair, and generally marked as such by riming with each other.
- noun In music, two equal notes inserted in the midst of triple rhythm to occupy the time of three; a temporary displacement of triple by duple rhythm.
- noun One of a pair, as of twins; a twin.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Two taken together; a pair or couple; especially two lines of verse that rhyme with each other.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun literature A pair of lines with
rhyming end words. - noun A pair of one-way streets which carry opposing directions of traffic through gridded urban areas.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a stanza consisting of two successive lines of verse; usually rhymed
- noun two items of the same kind
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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The wasteful Burnside-Couch traffic "couplet" is having a "groundbreaking" tomorrow afternoon -- at least, the east side section of it.
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The wasteful Burnside-Couch traffic "couplet" is having a "groundbreaking" tomorrow afternoon -- at least, the east side section of it.
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That first couplet is too perfect for explanation.
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(The first couplet is by Roger Boyle, the Earl of Orrery, 1621-79, and the second by the ever-great Anonymous.)
Author, author: Nick Laird Nick Laird 2010
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A major function of the eastside couplet is to integrate traffic onto the Bridgehead site to give it greater exposure (Opus's idea).
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Most poems are odes or odes-in-spirit that marvel at the qualities of a creature in couplet quatrains or another traditional form.
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When she came to him, radiant, her hands full of the lilies, a couplet from a favourite poem darted into his head –
Kilmeny of the Orchard Lucy Maud 1910
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‘Walter and Jane,’ the second poem, is an artless tale of two lovers, related with a simplicity by no means inelegant, in couplet verse; and to a manner calculated to remind the reader of the narrative style of our best
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Will stop now as the third couplet is even worse, and wouldn’t wish to give offence.
en français 2008
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A. 2.p. 242), we find that either line of the couplet is shortened by a foot; it is, therefore, majzú.
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