trochee

[ troh-kee ]

noun

, Prosody.

1. a foot of two syllables, a long followed by a short in quantitative meter, or a stressed followed by an unstressed in accentual meter. : 

trochee

/ ˈtrəʊkiː /

noun

1. prosody a metrical foot of two syllables, the first long and the second short ( ) Compare iamb

Word History and Origins

Origin of trochee¹

1580–90; < Latin trochaeus < Greek ( poùs ), trochaîos running (foot), equivalent to troch- (variant stem of tréchein to run) + -aios adj. suffix

Word History and Origins

Origin of trochee¹

C16: via Latin from Greek trokhaios pous , literally: a running foot, from trekhein to run

Example Sentences

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

From Seattle Times

“It was the term that the Elizabethans once used for the analysis of poetic technique: when to invert the foot, how to get a spondee by dropping a trochee into an iamb’s slot, and things like that. Kitchen criticism is a term that should be revived, because its unlovely first word might have the merit of persuading the fastidious to make themselves scarce until they can accept that there is an initial level of manufacture at which the potatoes have to be peeled.”

From New York Times

A single stressed syllable, then a trochee, then a dactyl, for prosody nerds.

From Literature

I heard the hokey trochee at least a dozen times as I sat at the interminable Wacker and Madison red light.

From Wall Street Journal

Trochee, trō′kē, n. a metrical foot of two syllables, so called from its tripping or joyous character: in Latin verse, consisting of a long and a short, as nūmĕn; in English verse, of an accented and unaccented syllable, as tri′pod.—n.

From Project Gutenberg