Home › Glossary › Letter A

Acme

Prosody
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The peak or climax of rhythmic intensity in a poetic line or stanza, where stress and sound patterns reach their height for dramatic effect.

Detailed Definition
In prosody, acme marks the rhythmic summit in a poem's structure, intensifying auditory impact to heighten emotional peaks, common in epic or lyrical verse to mirror narrative climaxes. Poets like Milton employed it in Paradise Lost to amplify divine revelations, using heightened ictus and vowel elongation; its significance lies in creating memorable sonic crescendos that engage listeners, reflecting poetry's power to evoke grandeur through precise auditory architecture, and it appears to synchronize form with content for immersive reader experience.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" reaches acme in the volta with heightened iambic stresses on "eternal summer," peaking rhythmic intensity; In Milton's Paradise Lost, the acme occurs in Satan's soliloquy where spondaic feet amplify defiant resolve; A student example: Build to acme in a haiku's final line by intensifying vowel sounds for emotional climax; Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" uses acme in the closing assertion "Beauty is truth," with rising pitch and stress; Modern rap poetry might employ acme through accelerating multisyllabic rhymes to culminate a verse's energy.|In Homer's Iliad, acme manifests in battle descriptions via dactylic crescendo, heightening epic drama; For practice, write a tercet where the middle line's trochaic rhythm builds to a stressed finale, demonstrating acme's sonic peak; In Emily Dickinson's dashes, acme punctuates abrupt rhythmic heights for philosophical insight.
Additional Notes
Acme in prosody serves as the auditory climax, akin to a volta in sonnets but focused on sonic peaks, helping students recognize how poets like Milton amplify drama through intensified ictus and alliteration; related to hypercatalexis or climax in rhetoric, it's ideal for epic or lyric verse to synchronize form with thematic highs; for advanced study, note its use in Romantic poetry to evoke sublime moments, with a tip: chart stress patterns across stanzas to pinpoint acme, revealing how it structures emotional arcs and invites performative emphasis in readings.
Also Known As
rhythmic climax sonic peak
Skip to main content