huitain

huitain [wee‐teⁿ], a French stanza form consisting of eight lines of either 8 or 10 syllables each, usually rhyming ababbcbc or abbaacac. It may form an independent poem or part of a longer work such as a ballade. The huitain was used by François Villon in his Lais (1456) and in his famous Testament (1461). In English, the stanza used earlier by Chaucer in his Monk's Tale has the same form.