Iamb (poetry)

Metrical feet and accents
Disyllables
◡ ◡	pyrrhic, dibrach
◡ –	iamb
– ◡	trochee, choree
– –	spondee
Trisyllables
◡ ◡ ◡	tribrach
– ◡ ◡	dactyl
◡ – ◡	amphibrach
◡ ◡ –	anapaest, antidactylus
◡ – –	bacchius
– – ◡	antibacchius
– ◡ –	cretic, amphimacer
– – –	molossus
	See main article for tetrasyllables.
	v; t; e;

An iamb (/ˈaɪæm/ EYE-am) or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody: a short syllable followed by a long syllable (as in καλή (kalḗ) "beautiful (f.)"). This terminology was adopted in the description of accentual-syllabic verse in English, where it refers to a foot comprising an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (as in abóve). Thus a Latin word like íbī, because of its short-long rhythm, is considered by Latin scholars to be an iamb, but because it has a stress on the first syllable, in modern linguistics it is considered to be a trochee.^[1]

^ e.g. Alan Prince (1991) "Quantitative Consequences of Rhythmic Organization". In Michael Ziolkowski et al., eds., Papers from the 26th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, p. 3.

[1] .g. Alan Prince (1991) "Quantitative Consequences of Rhythmic Organization". In Michael Ziolkowski et al., eds., Papers from the 26th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, p. 3.

[1]