Meaning & use
dactylic foot
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Meanings
nouncountabletechnical
In poetry, a unit of rhythm made of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones.
Grammar: Countable: you can talk about one dactylic foot or several dactylic feet.
Patterns
- a dactylic foot in something
- write something in dactylic feet
- a line of dactylic feet
The word 'merrily' can be read as a single dactylic foot.
Students marked each dactylic foot with a long stroke and two short ones.
Her poem opens with three dactylic feet before the rhythm changes.
noununcountabletechnical
The pattern of such units when it runs through a line or a whole poem.
Grammar: Uncountable when it names the rhythm itself rather than one unit: the poem is written in dactylic foot.
Patterns
- be written in dactylic foot
- use dactylic foot in something
Much of the poem is written in dactylic foot, which gives it a rolling sound.
The teacher asked why the poet chose dactylic foot for a sad subject.
Word forms
| plural | dactylic feet |
|---|
Common combinations
- a dactylic foot in a line
- There is a dactylic foot in the middle of that line.
- mark the dactylic feet
- The class learned to mark the dactylic feet with symbols.
- a line of dactylic feet
- He wrote a line of dactylic feet to imitate a galloping horse.
- scan something as dactylic feet
- The tutor scanned the verse as dactylic feet rather than iambs.
- the dactylic foot pattern
- Once you hear the dactylic foot pattern, the whole stanza makes sense.
Synonyms and how they differ
- dactyl
- Shorter and far more common; it means the same unit, so use 'dactyl' in ordinary writing and keep 'dactylic foot' for technical descriptions.
- metrical foot
- A wider term that covers every rhythm unit, including iambs and trochees, so it fits when you are not naming the dactyl pattern specifically.
Word family
- dactyl noun
- A metrical unit of one stressed syllable plus two unstressed ones.
- dactylic adjective
- Describing verse that uses this rhythm.
Commonly confused: dactylic foot or anapest?
dactylic foot vs anapest
An anapest is the mirror image: two unstressed syllables come first and the stress falls last, as in 'understand'.
Practice
Which line contains a clear dactylic foot at the start?
Choose one answer.
'Merrily' gives one strong beat followed by two weak ones, which is exactly a dactylic foot. 'The cat sat on the mat' begins with two stressed syllables, so it is not dactylic.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “dactylic foot”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.