Poetic three-line

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 verse unit consisting of three lines, such as a tercet, used in various poetic traditions

Detailed Definition
A poetic three-line, or tercet, is a stanzaic unit of three lines that may employ various rhyme schemes (AAA, ABA, ABC) or remain unrhymed; it offers flexibility for narrative progression, lyrical intensity, or structural variation, notably in forms like terza rima or haiku adaptations.
Example
Example in poetry:
A tercet like “Three crows on a wire / One flies east / Two stay still”; Dante’s terza rima as classic poetic three-line; a haiku as a form of poetic three-line; “Red wheelbarrow / glazed with rain / beside white chickens” (Williams)
Additional Notes
Poetic three-line: A general term for any three-line poetic unit; may refer to tercets, triplets, or triads depending on rhyme and function; see lyric triplet (10098) and verse triad (10101).
Also Known As
Lyrical tercet Triple utterance Tripartite stanza Three-fold verse Lyric triad
Skip to main content