Poetry Guide: Choriamb

In Greek and Latin poetry, choriamb refers to a prosodic foot of four syllables, of the pattern long-short-short-long.

In the prosody of English and other modern European languages, "choriamb" is sometimes used to describe four-syllable sequence of the pattern stressed-unstressed-unstressed-stressed: for example, "SEEN and not HEARD".

See also

• meter (poetry)
• Choriambic verse