Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Having ten syllables: as, a decasyllabic verse.

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

  • adjective Having, or consisting of, ten syllables.

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

  • adjective Having ten syllables
  • adjective Composed of decasyllables

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

  • adjective having or characterized by or consisting of ten syllables

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

deca- +‎ syllabic

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Examples

  • Debbie has some fine Augustan echoes: rolling decasyllabic lines though with impish breaks that propel semantic leaps, as in the first few lines!

    Erin Moure reads Lisa Robertson Lemon Hound 2009

  • Whether fifty thousand words of prose action or fourteen decasyllabic lines of verse with a strict rhyme scheme, a genre is a list of the minimal conditions that a writer must meet.

    Genres and niche markets 2009

  • Whether fifty thousand words of prose action or fourteen decasyllabic lines of verse with a strict rhyme scheme, a genre is a list of the minimal conditions that a writer must meet.

    Archive 2009-09-01 2009

  • Yes, at some point in my past, I decided to note the number of syllables you'd use for the word "Canterbury" in order to make the verse come out "properly" decasyllabic.

    Archive 2008-06-01 Bardiac 2008

  • Yeah, it LOOKS iambic pentameter to me, too, but real medievalist verse types will tell you that it's not; it's something something decasyllabic verse.

    Archive 2008-06-01 Bardiac 2008

  • This is the only instance where Catullus has introduced a spondee into the second foot of the phalaecian, which then becomes decasyllabic.

    Poems and Fragments 2006

  • This is the only instance where Catullus has introduced a spondee into the second foot of the phalaecian, which then becomes decasyllabic.

    Poems and Fragments 2006

  • The alternation of this decasyllabic rhythm with the ordinary hendecasyllable is studiously artistic; I have retained it throughout.

    Poems and Fragments 2006

  • Sharon and the maids of Salem, and a prophecy that roses shall deck the entire country of Syria, and a speedy reign of peace be established — all in undeniably decasyllabic lines, and the queerest aping of sense and sentiment and poetry.

    The History of Pendennis 2006

  • The alternation of this decasyllabic rhythm with the ordinary hendecasyllable is studiously artistic; I have retained it throughout.

    Poems and Fragments 2006

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