prosodic

[ pruh-sod-ik ]

adjective

1. of or relating to poetic meter and versification:

   She provided an analysis of the epics based on narrative style, prosodic structure, and her observation of how they were recited.

2. Linguistics. of or relating to patterns of stress, intonation, etc.:

   In the text-to-speech software, he showed us how to manipulate prosodic features such as duration, pitch, and stress for greater realism.

Other Words From

• pro·sod·i·cal·ly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of prosodic¹

First recorded in 1760–65; prosod(y) ( def ) + -ic ( def )

Example Sentences

A formal discipline of picture-making presides, as prosodic sophistication does in Han Shan—governing a flow that recalls Jackson Pollock’s response when a visitor remarked that he didn’t work from nature.

From The New Yorker

He absorbed aesthetic theory from Edmund Burke, prosodic elevation from John Ruskin, and social description from John Dos Passos.

From The New Yorker

Overall, each of the new words varied reliably from its opposite in at least one feature, and 57% of the words had unique prosodic “calling cards.”

From Science Magazine

It’s a prosodic parlor trick that dazzles at first but eventually grows shrill and monotonous.

From Washington Post

Critically, they are nothing; but historically, they dominated the popular prosodic thought of the eighteenth century.

From Project Gutenberg