Home › Glossary › Letter H

Hendecasyllabic quatrain

Form
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 quatrain in which each line contains exactly eleven syllables, often used in Romance-language poetry for lyrical flexibility.

Detailed Definition
A hendecasyllabic quatrain is a four-line stanza in which each line contains eleven syllables, often following an Italianate stress pattern (e.g., iambic pentameter plus a feminine ending); it supports melodic continuity and is favored in meditative or elegiac poetry for its flowing cadence.
Example
Example in poetry:
Hendecasyllabic quatrain: Four 11-syllable lines rhyming ABAB: “The clock ticks slow in rooms where no one stays. / Dust writes its name on every empty chair. / …”
Additional Notes
Quatrain in 11-syllable lines. Classical Latin meter adapted to vernacular. Study with Catullus and Renaissance adaptations.
Also Known As
eleven-syllable quatrain hendeca-stanza
Skip to main content