dactylic

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

It is said that Meechan’s fellow satirist, Juvenal, issued a similar warning to ancient Greek critics, infuriated by his cavalier use of the dactylic hexameter, in the second century AD.

From The Guardian • May 26, 2019

There were monkeypods, “planted as seedlings no taller than chives,” as Mr. Merwin wrote, in impeccable dactylic tetrameter, in an essay in “What Is a Garden?,” which centers on his work in Hawaii.

From New York Times • Mar. 15, 2019

Written in sprightly dactylic couplets, The Gashlycrumb Tinies was inspired, said Gorey, by “those 19th century cautionary tales, I guess, though my book is punishment without misbehavior.”

From Slate • Nov. 14, 2018

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

It was no easy thing for the average boy to read three lines of the resounding dactylic hexameters of "P. Virgilius Maro" according to the Columbia system of the day without a slip in quantity.

From From School to Battle-field A Story of the War Days by King, Charles