Word.ws English Dictionary

iambic pentameter

/aɪˈæmbɪk pɛnˈtæmɪtə(ɹ)/

iambic pentameter noun: a poetic meter consisting of lines with five iambic feet each, meaning the even syllables are dominant.

Noun

iambic pentameter (countable and uncountable, plural iambic pentameters)

  1. A poetic meter consisting of lines with five iambic feet each, meaning the even syllables are dominant.
    • Yet he didn't recommend Wilson, even though she has undertaken to capture the poem's aural grandeur by rendering it as iambic pentameter. (Nothing signals canonical like employing Shakespeare's favourite meter.)2023 October 21, Kate Maltby, “Brute force”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 9

Forms of iambic pentameter

pluraliambic pentameters

Questions about iambic pentameter

What does iambic pentameter mean?
Iambic pentameter means a poetic meter consisting of lines with five iambic feet each, meaning the even syllables are dominant.
What part of speech is iambic pentameter?
Iambic pentameter is a noun.
How do you pronounce iambic pentameter?
Iambic pentameter is pronounced /aɪˈæmbɪk pɛnˈtæmɪtə(ɹ)/.
What is the plural of iambic pentameter?
The plural of iambic pentameter is iambic pentameters.

Words near iambic pentameter in the dictionary

  1. Iambe
  2. iambelegi
  3. iambelegus
  4. iambi
  5. iambic
  6. iambic pentameter
  7. iambic pentameters
  8. iambic shortening
  9. iambic shortenings
  10. iambic tetrameter
  11. iambical

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: iambic pentameter (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: “iambic pentameter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/iambic_pentameter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.