doggerel
Other forms: doggerels
We're not sure why poor dogs always seem to get used to describe something really dreadful, but it's the case with doggerel — meaning irregularly rhyming, really bad poetry, usually comic in tone and fit only for dogs.
Sometimes doggerel has a non-critical meaning: plenty of popular comic poets (like Lewis Carroll or any limerick inventor) had no aim to make great art, just great light verse, and they succeeded brilliantly. They were masters of doggerel. But pity the earnest highbrow poet like the immortal Scotsman William McGonagall whose doggerel was so bad his audience frequently pelted him with eggs and rotting vegetables. Now his poetry was only fit for the dogs.
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a comic verse of irregular measure“he had heard some silly doggerel that kept running through his mind”synonyms: doggerel verse, jingle
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Vocabulary lists containing doggerel
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You'll be well versed in poetic genres once you master this list covering everything from the brief haiku to the lengthy epic. To learn even more about poetry, explore our lists on Literary Devices and Structure and Meter.
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