Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A unit of verse consisting of two lines, especially as used in Greek and Latin elegiac poetry.
  • noun A rhyming couplet.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having two rows: same as distichous.
  • noun In prosody, a group or system of two lines or verses.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Pros.) A couple of verses or poetic lines making complete sense; an epigram of two verses.
  • adjective Disposed in two vertical rows; two-ranked.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun prosody A couplet, a two line stanza making complete sense.
  • noun Any couplet.
  • adjective distichous

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun two items of the same kind

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin distichon, from Greek distikhon, from neuter of distikhos, having two rows or verses : di-, two; see di– + stikhos, line of verse; see steigh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin distichon ("a poem of two verses, a distich consisting of a hexameter and a pentameter"), from Ancient Greek δίστιχον

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Examples

  • The distich is highly fanciful and the conceits would hardly occur to

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • No matter what your fashion is, you volition be capable to break a distich of these place and actually rep the benefits.

    Warning: Slant-Eye Alert Steven Barnes 2008

  • I am not certain that the distich is a simple interpolation, since there is nothing in the context to which it is an obvious gloss.

    The Last Poems of Ovid 43 BC-18? Ovid

  • The father, too, in the joy of his heart that the arduous work was drawing to a close, and with it his long journey, writes four lines, one above another, round the edge of the page, so that the whole forms a framework for a sketch of a burning heart and four triangles (symbols of fidelity), and a bird on the wing from whose beak a distich is streaming: --

    The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Volume 01 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1773

  • In the opening "distich" Mr. Dutt makes the claim to be the first Asiatic poet to write in English, and if that is true this insignificant work becomes the seed of which the full flower is the gifted Rabindra, son of

    A Boswell of Baghdad With Diversions 1903

  • The father, too, in the joy of his heart that the arduous work was drawing to a close, and with it his long journey, writes four lines, one above another, round the edge of the page, so that the whole forms a framework for a sketch of a burning heart and four triangles (symbols of fidelity), and a bird on the wing from whose beak a distich is streaming: ”

    The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mozart, Wolfgang A 1864

  • ASPICIS, the first word of Veterani's distich in the Gubbio studiolo, has been translated as "see how"; ad-spic-ere signifies "to look at."

    Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

  • Schiller's turn, in the capping line of his famous distich: "... so spricht, ach! schon die Seel nicht mer" ( "so speaks, oh!, no longer the soul"; emphasis added).

    Phonemanography: Romantic to Victorian 2008

  • Where Urbino's text offers a dedicatory introduction to Duke Federico, the Latin inscription at Gubbio is a distich dedicated to the liberal arts, composed by court scholar Federico Veterani. 20 It proceeds:

    Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro 2008

  • It seems definite, on the other hand, that the Missa Sine nomine was composed for King Ferdinand, a supposition encouraged by the distich found at the head of this mass in the Verona manuscript: “Ferdinande sacer inter divos referende cantica tinctoris suscipe parva tui” “O Ferdinand, saintly enough to be counted amongst the gods, accept these little compositions by Tinctoris”.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Lu 2009

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