Word.ws English Dictionary

amphibrach

UK/ˈam.fɪ.bɹak/

amphibrach noun: a metrical foot in ancient Greek or Latin consisting of two short syllables surrounding one long one (e.g. amāta).

Noun

amphibrach (plural amphibrachs)

  1. A metrical foot in ancient Greek or Latin consisting of two short syllables surrounding one long one (e.g. amāta).
  2. A metrical foot in modern prosody, consisting of three syllables, the middle one of which is stressed (e.g. Jamaica).
    • Then Banoffsky launched into Glinka's great amphibrachs [...]: Subside, agitation of passion!1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin 2011, page 322

Forms of amphibrach

pluralamphibrachs

Origin of amphibrach

From Latin amphibrachys, from Ancient Greek ἀμφίβραχυς (amphíbrakhus, “short at both ends”), from ἀμφί (amphí) + βραχύς (brakhús, “short”).

Questions about amphibrach

What does amphibrach mean?
Amphibrach means a metrical foot in ancient Greek or Latin consisting of two short syllables surrounding one long one (e.g. amāta).
What part of speech is amphibrach?
Amphibrach is a noun.
How do you pronounce amphibrach?
Amphibrach is pronounced /ˈam.fɪ.bɹak/ (UK).
What is the plural of amphibrach?
The plural of amphibrach is amphibrachs.

Words near amphibrach in the dictionary

  1. amphibologies
  2. amphibology
  3. amphibolous
  4. amphiboly
  5. amphiboreal
  6. amphibrach
  7. amphibrachic
  8. amphibrachically
  9. amphibrachs
  10. amphibs
  11. amphicarpic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: amphibrach (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “amphibrach.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/amphibrach. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.