Dictionary:

stanza

  (stăn'zə)

One of the divisions of a poem, composed of two or more lines usually characterized by a common pattern of meter, rhyme, and number of lines.

[Italian. See stance.]

ADVERTISEMENT

stanza, a group of verse lines forming a section of a poem and sharing the same structure as all or some of the other sections of the same poem, in terms of the lengths of its lines, its metre, and usually its rhyme scheme. In printed poems, stanzas are separated by spaces. Stanzas are often loosely referred to as ‘verses’, but this usage causes serious confusion and is best avoided, since a verse is, strictly speaking, a single line. Although some writers regard the couplet and the tercet as kinds of stanza, the term is most often applied to groups of four lines or more, the four‐line quatrain being by far the most common, in the ballad metre and various other forms. Among the longer and more complex kinds of stanza used in English are the Burns stanza, ottava rima, rhyme royal, and the Spenserian stanza; but there are many others with no special names. The fixed forms derived from medieval French verse have their own intricate kinds of stanza. Poems that are divided regularly into stanzas are stanzaic, whereas poems that form a continuous sequence of lines of the same length are referred to as being stichic. In many poems which are divided up irregularly (usually those written in blank verse, heroic couplets, or free verse), the sections are sometimes called verse paragraphs, but in the irregular form of the ode, these unmatched subdivisions are usually called stanzas or strophes.

A room or chamber within a building, as the stanze of Raphael in the Vatican.

A group of lines of verse, usually set off from other groups by a space. The stanzas of a poem often have the same internal pattern of rhymes.

A division of a poem made by arranging the lines into units separated by a space, usually of a corresponding number of lines and a recurrent pattern of meter and rhyme. A poem with such divisions is described as having a stanzaic form, but not all verse is divided in stanzas.

   Let me not to the marriage of true minds             |\
   Admit impediments. Love is not love                  | \
   Which alters when it alteration finds,               | / All one stanza
   Or bends with the remover to remove:                 |/
   O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,                      |\ 
   That looks on tempests and is never shaken;          | \
   It is the star to every wandering bark,              | / All one stanza
   Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. |/
   Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks  |\
   Within his bending sickle's compass come;            | \
   Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,      | / All one stanza
   But bears it out even to the edge of doom.           |/
   If this be error and upon me proved,                 |\
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.                 |/  A couplet

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
n. - strofe, vers

Nederlands (Dutch)
couplet, strofe

Français (French)
n. - strophe

Deutsch (German)
n. - Strophe

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (προσωδ.) στροφή ποιήματος

Italiano (Italian)
stanza, strofa

Português (Portuguese)
n. - estrofe (f)

Русский (Russian)
строфа, лоджия, комната

Español (Spanish)
n. - octava real, estrofa

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - strof (metr.)

中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
节, 体育比赛的盘, 演出期

中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 節, 體育比賽的盤, 演出期

한국어 (Korean)
n. - (시의) 연, (스포츠) 1라운드, 쿼터

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 節

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) مقطع موسيقي أو شعري‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮בית (בשירה), סטנצה‬

If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.

To select your translation preferences click here.