blank verse
unrhymed verse, especially the unrhymed iambic pentameter most frequently used in English dramatic, epic, and reflective verse.
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Origin of blank verse
1Words Nearby blank verse
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use blank verse in a sentence
The only gangster picture ever done in blank verse, by Abraham Polonsky.
Farther on he laughs at the 'prophetical spirits' of those 'who set the end of scholarism in an English blank-verse.'
Few poets have approached him in the successful writing of blank verse, which has a delightful cadence as well as calm strength.
Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII | John LordI invented no new incident; I simply wrote the story as Ann had told it to me, in the best blank verse I was able to compose.
The Blue Jar Story Book | Maria EdgeworthDekkers theory of blank verse, in especial, was not a severe one.
blank verse he thinks too slow in movement, and too much opposed in character.
British Dictionary definitions for blank verse
prosody unrhymed verse, esp in iambic pentameters
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for blank verse
Verse written in iambic pentameter, without rhyme. Many of the speeches in the plays of William Shakespeare are written in blank verse; this example is from Macbeth:
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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