n.

1. A unit of verse consisting of two successive lines, usually rhyming and having the same meter and often forming a complete thought or syntactic unit.
2. Two similar things; a pair.

[French, from Old French, diminutive of couple, couple. See couple.]

noun

Two items of the same kind together: brace, couple, doublet, duet, duo, match, pair, two, twosome, yoke. See group, same/different/compare.

(Fr.)

Term used in the 17th and 18th centuries for the intermediate sections or episodes of a rondeau, as distinct from the recurrences of the opening section or refrain (which was sometimes called ‘grand couplet’).

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couplet [kup‐lit], a pair of rhyming verse lines, usually of the same length; one of the most widely used verse‐forms in European poetry. Chaucer established the use of couplets in English, notably in the Canterbury Tales, using rhymed iambic pentameters later known as heroic couplets: a form revived in the 17th century by Ben Jonson, Dryden and others, partly as the equivalent in heroic drama of the alexandrine couplets which were the standard verse‐form of French drama in that century. Alexander Pope followed Dryden's use of heroic couplets in non‐dramatic verse to become the master of the form, notably in his use of closed couplets. The octosyllablic couplet (of 8‐syllable or 4‐stress lines) is also commonly found in English verse. A couplet may also stand alone as an epigram, or form part of a larger stanza, or (as in Shakespeare) round off a sonnet or a dramatic scene. See also distich.

For more information on couplet, visit Britannica.com.

A pair of lines of verse that rhyme. Some poems, such as “The Night Before Christmas,” are written entirely in couplets:

`Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

Two successive lines of poetry, usually of equal length and rhythmic correspondence, with end-words that rhyme. The couplet, for practical purposes, is the shortest stanza form, but is frequently joined with other couplets to form a poem with no stanzaic divisions.

IN BRIEF: Two lines of poetry that go together and rhyme.

During the writing class, they had to read aloud a couplet they had written.

Tutor's tip: To be "coupled" means to be joined together, as in a marriage, while a "couplet" is a poetic unit of two lines.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - kuplet

Nederlands (Dutch)
tweeregelige strofe

Français (French)
n. - distique

Deutsch (German)
n. - Verspaar

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (προσωδ.) δίστιχο (κν. κουπλέ)

Italiano (Italian)
distico

Português (Portuguese)
n. - dístico (m)

Русский (Russian)
двустишие

Español (Spanish)
n. - pareado

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - rimmat verspar

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
对句, 对联

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 對句, 對聯

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 시의 대구, 쿠플레 (주제 사이에 낀 에피소드)

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 二行連句, 対句, 対

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) أبيات شعر ثنائيه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮צמד שורות חורזות, חרוז‬

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