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Feminine

Foot
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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 line ending in an unstressed syllable, often with an extra syllable beyond the metrical norm

Detailed Definition
Feminine describes a line ending with a light, unstressed syllable (e.g., an extra syllable in iambic pentameter), creating a softer, more lyrical close; this term appears in foot discussions because such endings often involve pyrrhic or amphibrach substitutions, and poets like Shakespeare used feminine rhymes to vary rhythm and enhance musicality in sonnets and songs.
Example
Example in poetry:
A feminine ending adds an unstressed syllable to a line’s close, as in Shakespeare’s sonnet: “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May”; In iambic pentameter, “To be, or not to be: that is the question” ends femininely; Milton uses feminine endings for lyrical variation in “Paradise Lost”; The term also applies to rhyme: “pleasure”/“treasure” are feminine rhymes; Feminine endings soften line conclusions and allow syntactic flow; In French verse, most lines end femininely by convention.
Additional Notes
Feminine: In prosody, a line ending with an unstressed (or short) syllable, often following a stressed one (e.g., in iambic pentameter with an extra syllable); contrasts with masculine endings; common in English rhymed couplets and French verse; crucial for scansion and rhyme analysis.
Also Known As
Feminine ending Feminine rhyme
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