dactyl
See also: dactyl-
English
[edit]
Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]
Learned borrowing from Latin dactylus, from Ancient Greek δάκτυλος (dáktulos, “finger”), three bones of the finger corresponding to three syllables.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA(key): /ˈdæktɪl/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - Hyphenation: dact‧yl
Noun
[edit]dactyl (plural dactyls)
- A metrical foot of three syllables (— ⏑ ⏑), one long followed by two short, or one accented followed by two unaccented.
- 1822 October 15, Quevedo Redivivus [pseudonym; Lord Byron], “The Vision of Judgment”, in The Liberal. Verse and Prose from the South, 2nd edition, volume I, number I, London: […] John Hunt, […], published 1823, →OCLC, stanzas XC–XCI, page 33:
- Now the Bard, glad to get an audience, […] / stuck fast with his first hexameter, / Not one of all whose gouty feet would stir. // But ere the spavin'd dactyls could be spurr'd / Into recitative, in great dismay / Both cherubim and seraphim were heard / To murmur loudly through their long array; […]
- 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1: Telemachus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC, part I [Telemachia], page 4:
- —My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a Hellenic ring, hasn't it?
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]poetical foot of three syllables
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See also
[edit]Categories:
- English terms borrowed from Latin
- English learned borrowings from Latin
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms derived from Ancient Greek
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- en:Poetry
- en:Three
- en:Prosody