Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Crudely or irregularly fashioned verse, often of a humorous or burlesque nature.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- An epithet originally given to a kind of loose, irregular measure in burlesque poetry, like that of “Hudibras,” but now more generally applied to mean verses defective alike in sense and in rhythm.
- n. Burlesque poetry, generally in irregular measure.
- n. Mean, paltry verses, defective in sense and in rhythm.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of a crude or irregular construction. (Originally applied to humorous verse, but now to verse lacking artistry or meaning.)
- adj. a comic or humorous verse, usually irregular in measure
- n. A doggerel poem or verse.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Low in style, and irregular in measure.
- n. A sort of loose or irregular verse; mean or undignified poetry.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a comic verse of irregular measure
Etymologies
- From Middle English, poor, worthless, from dogge, dog; see dog.
Examples
“If this is not done, as in what we call doggerel rhyme, an effect of grotesque is universally produced, to the ruin of serious poetic effect.”
The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (Periods of European Literature, vol. II)
“But, fortunately, there's a med (gabapentin), and there's physical therapy, which combined have delivered me to Level 5, where I write from now and where the pain, pardon the doggerel, is more reminding than blinding.”
“He turned his attention to abuses in Church and State, which he lashed with caustic satire, conveyed in short doggerel rhyming lines peculiar to himself, in which jokes, slang, invectives, and Latin quotations rush out pell-mell.”
“It seems an appropriate time (if there is one) to share this bit of doggerel from a short story by William Sanders:”
“Her comment upon this, in French doggerel, is illuminating.”
The Concealed Fansyes: A Play by Lady Jane Cavendish and Lady Elizabeth Brackley
“The Mask of Anarchy) in doggerel verse-satire based on popular religious symbols.”
“You get daily stints on network radio if you knocked off the doggerel, which is below cute, we'd be grateful.”
“This poem is in the style of “Hudibras,” called doggerel rhyme, which is the stilo Berniesco of the Italians.”
“Neither in his sonnets, nor in his various stanzas composed of heroics, nor in what may be called his doggerel metres -- the fatally fluent Alexandrines, fourteeners, and admixtures of both, which dominated English poetry from his time to Spenser's, and were never quite rejected during the Elizabethan period -- do we find evidence of the want of ear, or the want of command of language, which makes Wyatt's versification frequently disgusting.”
“I will next group a score of poems and doggerel rhymes with their various degrees of humor.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘doggerel’.
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metaphoric references to dogs
As an ongoing part of my project, Dogs in Metaphor and Idiom, Illustrated, (www.metaphordogs.org) I am continually adding terms. If you know a term that fi...
dog, alpha male, at bay, bark, bird dog, bitch, bitchin, bloodhound, bulldog, canaille, canines, cerberus and 130 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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