iamb
Other forms: iambs; iambi
In poetry, an iamb is part of a line that's made up of a short syllable followed by a long syllable. In an iamb, the stress is always on the second syllable.
Not all poetry uses iambs, but they lend a very specific, deliberate kind of rhythm and meter when they are used. Iambs show up in multiple forms, including "iambic pentameter," otherwise known as five iambs in a row, seen here in Tennyson's "Ulysses:" "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." The stressed syllables in this line are "strive, seek, find, not," and "yield." One individual iamb is "to seek."
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a metrical unit with unstressed-stressed syllablessynonyms: iambustype of:foot, metrical foot, metrical unit(prosody) a group of 2 or 3 syllables forming the basic unit of poetic rhythm
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Vocabulary lists containing iamb
One of the stumbling blocks when trying to study poetry is that it seems like a different world. Familiar things, like words, are put to unfamiliar use, and there is an entire descriptive vocabulary that is completely foreign and quite often puzzling. This list seeks to explain the words used to describe poetry through examples from famous poems. Nassim Nicholas Taleb said, "If you want to annoy a poet, explain his poetry," but we are willing to take that risk to make the world of literary analysis a little clearer and further illuminate the mystery of poetry.
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