Lacking one or more syllables, especially in the final foot. Used of verse.
[Late Latin catalēcticus, from Greek katalēktikos, from katalēgein, to leave off : kata-, intensive pref.; see cata- + lēgein, to cease, terminate.]
catalectic
Dictionary:
cat·a·lec·tic (kăt'l-ĕk'tĭk)  |
adj.
Lacking one or more syllables, especially in the final foot. Used of verse.
Lacking one or more syllables, especially in the final foot. Used of verse.
| Literary Dictionary: catalectic |
catalectic, lacking the final syllable or syllables expected in the regular pattern of a metrical verse line (see metre). The term is most often used of the common English trochaic line in which the optional final unstressed syllable (or feminine ending) is not used. Of these lines from Shelley's ‘To a Skylark’, the second and fourth are catalectic:
In the golden lightningThe first and third lines, which have the full number of syllables, are acatalectic. Unlike most English adjectives, ‘catalectic’ and its opposite ‘acatalectic’ usually follow the nouns they qualify: thus the last of Shelley's lines quoted above would be called a trochaic trimeter catalectic. A line which is short by more than one syllable is brachycatalectic, while a line with one syllable too many is hypercatalectic.
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run
Noun: catalexis.
See also acephalous, defective foot, truncation.| Poetry Glossary: Catalectic/Catalexis |
Metrically incomplete; the dropping of one or two unaccented syllables from the end of a line, thus ending with an incomplete foot.
| WordNet: catalectic |
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.
The adjective has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
(verse) metrically incomplete; especially lacking one or more syllables in the final metrical foot
Antonyms: hypercatalectic (meaning #1), acatalectic (meaning #1)
| Wikipedia: Catalectic |
A catalectic line is a metrically incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot. One form of catalexis is headlessness, where the unstressed syllable is dropped from the beginning of the line.
Making a meter cataletic can drastically change the feeling of the poem, and is often used to achieve a certain effect. Compare this selection from Book III of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha" with that from W. H. Auden's "Lay Your Sleeping Head, My Love". The first is in trochaic tetrameter, and the second in trochaic tetrameter catalectic (or headless iambic tetrameter).
- By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
- By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
- Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
- Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
- Dark behind it rose the forest,
- Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
- Rose the firs with cones upon them;
- Bright before it beat the water,
- Beat the clear and sunny water,
- Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
--H. W. Longfellow
--W. H. Auden |
A line missing two syllables is called brachycatalectic.
See also
References
Fenton, James. "An Introduction to English Poetry". New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002. ISBN 0-374-52889-6
Harmon, William. "A Handbook to Literature". Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2005. ISBN 0-13-134442-0
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Literary Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Copyright © Chris Baldick 2001, 2004. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Poetry Glossary. Copyright © 2007, ILOVEPOETRY, Inc, All Rights Reserved. Read more |
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| WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Catalectic". Read more |
