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truncated anapest

Meter
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

An anapestic foot missing its final unstressed syllable, creating a shortened rhythmic unit

Detailed Definition
A truncated anapest is a metrical foot missing its final unstressed syllable, resulting in a two-syllable pattern (stressed-unstressed) that disrupts the expected anapestic rhythm (unstressed-unstressed-stressed), often used to create abruptness, emphasis, or rhythmic tension.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “Half a league, half a league” uses truncated anapests (da-da-DUM becomes da-DUM); In Robert Browning’s “How They Brought the Good News,” some lines shorten anapests for speed; In modern poetry, truncated anapests appear in nursery rhymes like “Hickory dickory dock”; In A.E. Housman’s “When I Was One-and-Twenty,” anapestic lines are occasionally truncated for variation.
Additional Notes
A truncated anapest omits the final unstressed syllable of an anapestic foot, creating rhythmic abruptness; use for emphasis or to vary meter—common in comic or dramatic verse.
Also Known As
Shortened anapest clipped dactyl catalectic anapestic foot curtailed triple beat Headless anapestic tetrameter short anapestic dimeter
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