anapest

American  

[an-uh-pest] / ˈæn əˌpɛst /

Or anapaest

noun

Prosody.

1. a foot of three syllables, two short followed by one long in quantitative meter, and two unstressed followed by one stressed in accentual meter, as in for the nonce.

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Other Word Forms

• anapaestic adjective
• anapaestically adverb
• anapestic adjective
• anapestically adverb

Etymology

Origin of anapest

1580–90; < Latin anapaestus < Greek anápaistos struck back, reversed (as compared with a dactyl), equivalent to ana- ana- + pais- (variant stem of paíein to strike) + -tos past participle suffix

Explanation

An anapest is a unit of poetry made up of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable. Some three-syllable words, like "contradict" and "interrupt," are anapests. The structure and rhythm of a poem comes from its meter, the pattern made by stressed and unstressed syllables or "metrical feet." An anapest, a unit three syllables with the stress on the last syllable, is the opposite of the more common dactyl, which instead stresses the first of three syllables. "A Visit From St. Nicholas" by Clement Clarke Moore makes great use of anapests: "Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house..."

Example Sentences

Not that one needs to know an anapest from a trochee to enjoy the genre.

From Seattle Times • Apr. 6, 2023

It was a metrically auspicious birth date — the spondee “ONE, TEN” resounding like slaps on a baby’s bottom, the anapest “twenty-EIGHT” hurtling toward the future.

From New York Times • Feb. 15, 2015

Neither did he gallop in wild anapest down the road to Lexington.

From Time Magazine Archive

Five iambs and an anapest was the beat he tramped to now.

From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan

The trochee and the dactyl are interchangeable; and the iambus and the anapest are interchangeable.

From English: Composition and Literature by Webster, W. F. (William Franklin)