Home › Glossary › Letter F

Full five-foot line

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 pentameter line containing all five expected metrical feet without truncation, omission, or substitution, preserving full rhythmic integrity.

Detailed Definition
A full five-foot line is a verse line composed of five metrical feet—most commonly iambic pentameter in English—providing a natural rhythm that mirrors speech cadence while allowing for rhetorical complexity; it is the dominant meter of Shakespearean drama and much lyric poetry.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shakespeare’s blank verse often uses full five-foot line (iambic pentameter); Milton’s “Paradise Lost” exemplifies full five-foot line in epic context; Contemporary poet Gjertrud Schnackenberg uses full five-foot line formally; Full five-foot line appears in Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”; In “Ozymandias,” Shelley uses full five-foot line for ironic grandeur.
Additional Notes
Full five-foot line: A metrical line that adheres strictly to five complete metrical feet, such as a pure iambic pentameter; a contrast to catalectic or hypermetrical lines which have incomplete or extra syllables.
Also Known As
Pentameter line five-foot verse complete pentameter Acatalectic pentameter Untruncated pentameter
Skip to main content