Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A 14-line verse form often in iambic pentameter, having one of several conventional rhyme schemes and usually featuring a shift in mood or tone after the eighth or twelfth line.
- noun A poem in this form.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A song; a ballad; a short poem.
- noun Specifically A short poem in fixed form, limited to fourteen lines with a prescribed disposition of rimes.
- To celebrate in sonnets.
- To cover or fill with sonnets.
- To compose sonnets.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To compose sonnets.
- noun obsolete A short poem, -- usually amatory.
- noun A poem of fourteen lines, -- two stanzas, called the octave, being of four verses each, and two stanzas, called the sestet, of three verses each, the rhymes being adjusted by a particular rule.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A fixed
verse form of Italianorigin consisting of fourteen lines that are typically five-footiambics and rhyme according to one of a few prescribedschemes . - verb intransitive To
compose sonnets.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb compose a sonnet
- noun a verse form consisting of 14 lines with a fixed rhyme scheme
- verb praise in a sonnet
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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There are experimental sonnets that really do test the boundaries of the sonnet – the sonnet is all about innovation within tradition, and has been since it entered the English language, via translation, with Wyatt.
Quick Review 08 : Christian Bök : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation 2007
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That the sonnet is a cover story is suggested by Wordsworth's private account of meeting
'Put to the Blush': Romantic Irregularities and Sapphic Tropes 2006
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A collection of poems in sonnet form that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality.
Capsule Summaries of the Great Books of the Western World Jonathan Aquino 2009
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A collection of poems in sonnet form that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality.
Archive 2009-03-01 Jonathan Aquino 2009
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One of the great things about this sonnet is how the flow of thought is controlled (and transformed).
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A sonnet is short, but that doesn't mean it's easy to write a good one!
Archive 2010-01-01 Tarie 2010
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A sonnet is short, but that doesn't mean it's easy to write a good one!
Book Review and Author Interview: The Frog Scientist by Pamela S. Turner Tarie 2010
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A script seems to be tougher to write in the same way that a sonnet is tougher to write than free verse.
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Mrs Robinsons legitimate sonnets: In Sappho and Phaon, Robinsons fervent discourse on the nature of the "legitimate sonnet" is the cornerstone of her discussion of the poetics of sensibility, and helps to establish her claim for Sappho as the exemplar of strong poetic feeling.
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This sonnet is one of 25 sonnets and one of over 100 poems from my collection called Eleven.
Logophile77 commented on the word sonnet
"...Come, thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it
Mount of thy redeeming love..."
January 10, 2018