Home › Glossary › Letter B

Bacchic meter

Meter
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

A metrical foot consisting of one short syllable followed by two long syllables (rare in English)

Detailed Definition
Bacchic meter is a metrical foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by two stressed syllables (u / /), named after the god Bacchus due to its association with revelry and energetic rhythm; though rare in English poetry because of its heaviness, it appears occasionally in dramatic or experimental verse to convey urgency, passion, or chaotic movement.
Example
Example in poetry:
A line like "Strike the drums and dance!" using a bacchic foot (stressed-unstressed-unstressed): STRIKE the drums; Rare in English, but approximated in Robert Browning’s "The Pied Piper of Hamelin": "Rats! They fought the dogs and killed the cats"; Classical example: Greek dithyrambs using bacchic meter for ecstatic choral songs; Modern experimental line: "LOVE the night and burn the sky" (emphasizing bacchic rhythm: LOVE the night)
Additional Notes
Bacchic meter consists of metrical feet with two long syllables followed by a short one (– – ˘); rare in English but appears in classical Greek and Latin poetry.
Also Known As
Bacchic foot Tribrachic rhythm – – ˘ meter Bacchius Bacchiac verse Bacchic Drinking-song meter
Skip to main content