This verse consists of a trochaic dimeter catalectic with anacrusis + a Lesser Archilochian (2579).
The Iambic Septenarius of the early comedy is not properly a “tetrameter catalectic” like the Greek, for the penultimate syllable is sometimes resolved, which is never the case in the Greek catalectic tetrameter.
A verse is said to be catalectic in syllabam, in disyllabum, or in trisyllabum, according to the number of syllables remaining in the last foot.
An acatalectic dimeter is not seldom compounded with a catalectic iambic tripody: e.
Verses are distinguished as Catalectic or Acatalectic.
A Catalectic verse is one in which the last foot is not complete, but lacks one or more syllables; an Acatalectic verse has its last foot complete.
The hexameter is a six-foot catalectic verse theoretically consisting of five successive dactyls and a trochee.
As a rule, however, this acatalectic feminine line is mingled with catalectic verses with masculine endings, as e.
Another metre, which was equally popular with the tail-rhyme stanza with its many varieties, is the stanza formed of two Septenary verses (catalectic tetrameters).
In like manner thecatalectic iambic tetrameter is broken up by inserted rhyme into two short verses, viz.
But the verse in which this volume is written is catalectic par excellence, employing the pause (as it does the rhyme) with freedom only limited by the exigencies of poetic passion.
Students of metre will see the analogy to be strict, the line of eight being merely the carrying to completion of the catalectic line of seven, as the Alexandrine is merely the filling out of the catalectic line of five accents.
But the verse in which this volume is written is catalectic par excellence, employing the pause (as it does the rhyme) with freedom only limited by the exigencies of poetic passion.
To dwell on their technical excellences (the chief of which is the unerring precision with which the catalectic and acatalectic lines are arranged and interchanged) has a certain air of impertinence about it.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "catalectic" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
