Iambus

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Iambus \I*am"bus\, n.; pl. L. {Iambi}, E. {Iambuses}. [L.
     iambus, Gr. ?; prob. akin to ? to throw, assail (the iambus
     being first used in satiric poetry), and to L. jacere to
     throw. Cf. {Jet} a shooting forth.] (Pros.)
     A foot consisting of a short syllable followed by a long one,
     as in [a^]m[=a]ns, or of an unaccented syllable followed by


     an accented one, as invent; an iambic. See the Couplet under
     {Iambic}, n.
     [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  iambus
       n : a metrical unit with unstressed-stressed syllables [syn: {iamb}]