triolet

[ tree-uh-ley, trahy-uh-lit ]

noun

1. a short poem of fixed form, having a rhyme scheme of ab, aa, abab, and having the first line repeated as the fourth and seventh lines, and the second line repeated as the eighth.

triolet

/ ˈtriːəʊˌlɛt /

noun

1. a verse form of eight lines, having the first line repeated as the fourth and seventh and the second line as the eighth, rhyming a b a a a b a b

Word History and Origins

Origin of triolet¹

1645–55; < French: literally, little trio

Word History and Origins

Origin of triolet¹

C17: from French: a little trio

Example Sentences

This ingenious epistolary “novel” consists of the letters Shklovsky wrote Triolet during his political exile in Berlin.

From The Daily Beast

Shklovsky, a literary critic who co-founded the Russian Formalist movement, was hopelessly in love with the writer Elsa Triolet.

From The Daily Beast

A short poem, also called triolet, in which the first line or lines recur in the middle and at the end of the piece.

From Project Gutenberg

It would make a graceful, serio-comic triolet, he was thinking.

From Project Gutenberg

That is the precise sentiment of those who seek "to discover the proper temper in which a triolet should be written."

From Project Gutenberg

The triolet consists (to quote Mr. Dobson) of eight lines with two rhymes.

From Project Gutenberg

The eight-lined rondel is thus, to all intents and purposes, a triolet, although labelled a rondel.

From Project Gutenberg