Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A half line of verse, especially when separated rhythmically from the rest of the line by a caesura.
- n. An incomplete or imperfect line of verse.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In prosody: The exact or approximate half of a line or verse; one of the two commata or sections of a line divided by the cesura or dieresis.
- n. Any group of words forming part of a line, and considered or cited by itself; an incomplete or unfinished line.
- n. A colon, comma, or group of feet of less extent than the average line, or than the other lines of the same poem or stanza, standing metrically by itself, or so written, as, for example, an epodic line, ephymnium, or refrain.
Wiktionary
- n. An approximate half-line of verse, separated from another by a caesura, often for dramatic effect
- n. An unfinished line of verse
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Half a poetic verse or line, or a verse or line not completed.
Etymologies
- Latin hēmistichium, from Greek hēmistikhion : hēmi-, hemi- + stikhos, line; see steigh- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Misrá‘ah or hemistich is half the “Bayt” which, for want of a better word, I have rendered couplet: this, however, though formally separated in Mss., is looked upon as one line, one verse; hence a word can be divided, the former part pertaining to the first and the latter to the second moiety of the distich.”
“The hemistich is a kind of verse where long lines are split into two and linked by alliteration.”
The Guardian: Nick Laird enters the spirit of Anglo-Saxon poetry
“The chapter might be omitted without any injury to the action of the poem, and besides the metre, style, conceits and images differ from the general tenour of the poem; and that continual repetition of the same sounds at the end of each hemistich which is not exactly rime, but assonance, reveals the artificial labour of a more recent age.””
“Horace's Epicuri de grege, but let none add to it the sad spondee which ends the hemistich, "is more unsettling, since it mainly seems devoted to playing, through negation and elaborate periphrasis, with the possibility of referring to its subject as" an”
Economies of Excess in Brillat-Savarin, Balzac, and Baudelaire
“The Mukhammas, cinquains or pentastichs (Night cmlxiv.), represents a stanza of two distichs and a hemistich in monorhyme, the fifth line being the “bob” or burden: each succeeding stanza affects a new rhyme, except in the fifth line, e.g., aaaab + ccccb + ddddb and so forth.”
“The strength of a line in our language consists principally in saying something in each hemistich.”
“However, as my commander was absolute, his orders peremptory, and my obedience necessary, I resolved to avail myself of a philosophy which hath been of notable use to me in the latter part of my life, and which is contained in this hemistich of Virgil: — — — Superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.”
“It has been especially observed, that the first hemistich is a broken or short line, and does not correspond with the next in length or rhyme.”
“In answer to H.H. who advertises in No. 568, p. 208, of _The Mirror_, for a translation in one line rhyming with Virgil's hemistich:”
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 20, No. 572, October 20, 1832
“_Nec (non) meminisse_ is metrically useful for filling the second hemistich of the pentameter up to the disyllable; so used at vi 50 'arguat ingratum non meminisse sui', _Tr_”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hemistich’.
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phrontistery - h
from phrontistery.info
hysteresis, hyrax, hyoid, hymnody, hymnal, hylicism, hydric, hyalopterous, hyaloid, hyalography, hyaline, hyacinthine and 568 more...
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Comma Chameleon
On the art of commatology.
commatology, comma, series comma, Oxford comma, Harvard comma, komma, a cat has claws a..., what's the differ..., commando, comma-separated v..., Comma, inverted comma and 27 more...
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These words are about words.
words on words. yyep.
codex, folio, lexicon, tome, word stock, wordbook, wordlist, palaver, word index, argot, parlance, doublespeak and 68 more...
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hemi-
half
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
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poetry and rhetoric
zeugma, hypozeugma, mesozeugma, prozeugma, metaphor, simile, hemistich, apostrophe, bathos, pathos, eros, thanos and 7 more...
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Count of Monte Cristo
Words found in the Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
obsequious, nasturtium, coquettish, suffused, peremptory, diametrically, gendarme, usurper, augury, compunction, hemistich, Tuileries and 6 more...
Tweets
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