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Trochaic

Adjective
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

Describing a metrical foot composed of one long (stressed) syllable followed by one short (unstressed) syllable (/ u).

Detailed Definition
Trochaic describes a metrical pattern built from trochees, which are two-syllable units with stress on the first followed by an unstressed syllable (DUM-da); this creates a falling rhythm that can feel emphatic, forceful, or somber, and is often used in chants, incantations, and dramatic verse, as in the witches’ speech in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” (“Double, double toil and trouble”), where the trochaic beat enhances eerie and ritualistic tone.
Example
Example in poetry:
Blake’s “The Tyger” uses trochaic tetrameter: “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright”; In “The Raven,” Poe employs trochaic octameter: “Once upon a midnight dreary”; Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” uses trochaic tetrameter throughout; In “Hush, Little Baby,” the lullaby rhythm is trochaic: “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word”; Contemporary poet A.E. Stallings uses trochaic meter in “Sestina: Like” for rhythmic insistence.
Additional Notes
Trochaic meter consists of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one (DUM-da), creating a heavy, falling rhythm.
Also Known As
Falling meter Stressed-unstressed Two-syllable foot Long-short pattern
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