Home › Glossary › Letter T

Tristich

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 three-line stanza or complete poem (tercet), often used in forms like haiku, terza rima, or as a structural unit in free verse.

Detailed Definition
A tristich is a three-line stanza or poem that may follow any rhyme scheme (AAA, ABA, ABC, etc.) or remain unrhymed, functioning as a compact unit that balances brevity with structural completeness; unlike the more codified tercet (often associated with terza rima), the tristich is a flexible form used across traditions—from haiku adaptations to modern free verse—to encapsulate a single image, thought, or emotional turn with concision, where the tripartite division often suggests thesis-antithesis-synthesis or simply the satisfying geometry of beginning, middle, and end.
Example
Example in poetry:
Tristich: "Three lines stand alone— / no more, no less— / complete as breath."; "Dawn. / Birdsong. / Silence."; "She left. / I stayed. / Years passed."; "Fire. / Ash. / Memory."
Additional Notes
Three-line stanza or poem unit. Also called tercet or triplet. Foundation for terza rima; contrast with couplet (two lines) or quatrain (four lines).
Also Known As
Three-line poem Tercet Triplet verse Three-verse unit
Skip to main content