choriamb

1. A metrical foot consisting of a trochee followed by an iamb, much used in Greek and Latin poetry.
2. A foot of verse used in lyric poetry having two unstressed syllables flanked by the two rhythmic stresses marking the first and last syllables of the foot.

[Late Latin choriambus, from Greek khoriambos : khoreios, trochee (from khoros, chorus; see chorus) + iambos, iamb.]

choriamb [kor‐i‐am] or choriambus, a metrical unit combining one trochee (or ‘choree’) and one iamb into a single foot of four syllables, with two stressed syllables enclosing two unstressed syllables, as in the word hullabaloo (or, in quantitative verse, two long syllables enclosing two shorts). It was used frequently in Greek dramatic choruses and lyrics, and by the Roman poet Horace, and later in some German verse. Usually, as in the Asclepiad, it is combined with other feet. A rare English example of choriambic verse is Swinburne's ‘Choriambics’ (1878), in which the line consists of one trochee, three choriambs, and one iamb:

Ah, thy snow‐coloured hands! once were they chains, mighty to bind fast;
Now no blood in them burns, mindless of love, senseless of passions past.

chŏriamb, in metre, the metron _⌣⌣_.

In ancient poetry, a metrical foot consisting of four syllables, the first two forming a trochee and the second two an iambus.

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