Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The study of the metrical structure of verse.
- noun A particular system of versification.
- noun The set of speech variables, including rhythm, speed, pitch, and relative emphasis, that distinguish vocal patterns.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The science of the quantity of syllables and of pronunciation as affecting versification; in a wider sense, metrics, or the elements of metrics, considered as a part of grammar (see
metrics , 2).
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun That part of grammar which treats of the quantity of syllables, of accent, and of the laws of versification or metrical composition.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun linguistics The study of rhythm, intonation, stress, and related attributes in speech.
- noun poetry The study of
poetic meter ; thepatterns of sounds and rhythms inverse .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (prosody) a system of versification
- noun the study of poetic meter and the art of versification
- noun the patterns of stress and intonation in a language
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word prosody.
Examples
-
It seems like this whole discussion thread needs a lesson in prosody, mainly because everyone is getting them wrong.
Barack’s Prosody Problem: A Guest Post - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com 2008
-
And then, I felt harassed teaching a seminar in prosody — teaching form — at the graduate school level to unwilling, even surly students who were only taking it because they needed the credit.
The Art of Living 2002
-
And then, I felt harassed teaching a seminar in prosody — teaching form — at the graduate school level to unwilling, even surly students who were only taking it because they needed the credit.
The Art of Living 2002
-
English prosody is regular and veiled, its natural beauties all melancholy; the clouds have shaped its hues, and the sound of waves its modulations.
-
Verse such as this would permit of every rhythmical variation known in English prosody, and through the appeal of its rhythm would offer the dramatist opportunities for emotional effect that prose would not allow him; but at the same time it could be spoken with entire naturalness by actors as ultra-modern as Mme. Nazimova.
The Theory of the Theatre Clayton Hamilton
-
ELISION, the omission or crowding out of unstressed words or unaccented syllables to make the metre smoother; a term belonging to classical prosody and inappropriate in English prosody except where syllable-counting verse is concerned.
The Principles of English Versification Paull Franklin Baum
-
QUANTITY, the length of a syllable; established by convention in classical prosody; in English prosody very uncertain but always present.
The Principles of English Versification Paull Franklin Baum
-
SPONDEE, a classical prosody a foot of two long syllables; in English prosody a foot of two 'long' or accented or stressed words or syllables,
The Principles of English Versification Paull Franklin Baum
-
Chinese prosody is a very difficult thing for an Occidental to understand.
-
His prosody is based upon the numbers five and seven, a
Diaries of Court Ladies of Old Japan b. 974? Murasaki Shikibu Izumi Shikibu 1920
sionnach commented on the word prosody
The description of rhythm, loudness, pitch, and tempo. It is often used as a synonym for suprasegmentals, although its meaning is narrower: it only refers to the features mentioned above.
October 14, 2009