Hexameter meaning

hĕk-săm'ĭ-tər
Verse written in lines of six metrical feet, especially classical verse in which the first four feet of each line are either dactylic or spondaic, the fifth dactylic, and the sixth spondaic.
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A single line of such verse.
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A line of verse containing six metrical feet or measures; specif., the six-foot dactylic line of classical verse, the first four feet of which may be either dactyls or spondees, the fifth a dactyl, and the sixth a spondee or trochee.
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Verse consisting of hexameters.
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Having six metrical feet or measures.
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(countable) A line in a poem having six metrical feet.
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(uncountable) A poetic metre in which each line has six feet.
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Origin of hexameter

  • Latin from Greek hexametros having six metrical feet hexa- hexa- metron meter meter1
    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
  • From Ancient Greek ἑξάμετρος (heksametros).
    From Wiktionary

Hexameter Sentence Examples

  • The peculiar rapidity of Homer is due in great measure to his use of the hexameter verse.

  • It was popular in the middle ages, hexameter abridgments being current under the names of Theodericus and Petrus Diaconus.

  • The fact that they copied the form in which the heathen revelations were conveyed (Greek hexameter verses) and the Homeric language is evidence of a degree of external Hellenization, which is an important fact in the history of post-exilic Judaism.

  • The longest, Theriaca, is an hexameter poem (958 lines) on the nature of venomous animals and the wounds which they inflict.

  • Yet he could not have been insensible to the immense superiority in rhythmical smoothness which the hexameter of Lucretius has over that of Ennius and Lucilius.

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Words near hexameter in the Dictionary