dactylic

Example Sentences

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As such, it’s particularly difficult to adapt to dactylic hexameter, the waltzlike, oom-pah-pah meter of epic poetry, which the Romans inherited from the Greeks.

From The New Yorker • Oct. 8, 2018

Homer composed the “Odyssey” in dactylic hexameter, the six-beat meter that gives the poem its elevated oom-pah-pah, oom-pah-pah cadence.

From New York Times • Sep. 18, 2017

More specifically, a grammatically- and rhythmically-correct line of dactylic hexameter, the kind used by Virgil and Ovid.

From Slate • Aug. 29, 2017

Ode one/nine is written in Alcaics, a four-lined, largely dactylic strophe named after the Greek poet Alcaeus: it's the commonest verse-form in the Odes, a flexible form-for-all-seasons.

From The Guardian • Jul. 30, 2012

Of this song Mr. Saintsbury says that it is "one of the rare examples of a real dactylic metre in English, where the dactyls are not, as usual, equally to be scanned as anapests."

From English Verse Specimens Illustrating its Principles and History by Alden, Raymond MacDonald