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Witty couplet

Form
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

A rhymed pair of lines characterized by cleverness, irony, or intellectual play

Detailed Definition
A witty couplet is a pair of rhymed lines—often in iambic pentameter—that delivers a clever, ironic, or epigrammatic insight with concision and flair; perfected by poets like Alexander Pope, it uses balance, surprise, and linguistic precision to encapsulate complex ideas in memorable form.
Example
Example in poetry:
Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Criticism” includes witty couplet: “To err is human, to forgive divine”; John Dryden’s “Absalom and Achitophel” uses witty couplet for political satire; Dorothy Parker’s “News Item” ends with witty couplet: “Men seldom make passes / At girls who wear glasses”; Samuel Johnson’s “The Vanity of Human Wishes” employs witty couplets on ambition’s futility.
Additional Notes
Witty couplet delivers insight or satire in two rhymed lines—Pope’s “To err is human”; requires concision, surprise, and verbal dexterity; ideal for epigrams and closing arguments; avoid cliché through original phrasing.
Also Known As
Witty distich Clever couplet Satiric pair Ironical verse Brief witty poem Epigrammatic couplet epigrammatic verse
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