sestet

[se-stet, ses-tet]

noun

1. Prosody.,  the last six lines of a sonnet in the Italian form, considered as a unit.

2. sextet.

sestet

/ sɛˈstɛt /

noun

1. prosody the last six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet

2. prosody any six-line stanza

3. another word for sextet

Word History and Origins

Origin of sestet¹

1795–1805; < Italian sestetto sextet, equivalent to sest ( o ) (< Latin sextus sixth ) + -etto -et

Word History and Origins

Origin of sestet¹

C19: from Italian sestetto, from sesto sixth, from Latin sextus, from sex six

Example Sentences

There was street parking on Gage in front of an orangely-lit space; inside, amid dates and family dinners, a sestet of elderly women drank tamarind margaritas and sang happy birthday.

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This sestet is sharpened by Robert's characteristic division of the six lines into two separate triplets, a structure favoured by Philip Sidney in Astrophil and Stella.

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The enfolded quatrain-form is itself a reference to the rhyme scheme of the Petrarchan sonnet's sestet.

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If "blind", as both adjective and noun, rules the octet, then "peace", also repeated three times, is the dominant noun of the sestet.

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Apart from the attributive tag, the sonnet's sestet, all in the imperative case, is spoken by Liberty herself.

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