DACTYL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Dactyl

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/dˈæktɪl/ Listen

noun

dactyl n.

(Pros.) A poetical foot of three sylables, one long followed by two short, or one accented followed by two unaccented; as, E. merciful; so called from the similarity of its arrangement to that of the joints of a finger. (Written also dactyle)

(Zool.)

(a)

A finger or toe; a digit.

(b)

The claw or terminal joint of a leg of an insect or crustacean.

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Etymology of 'Dactyl'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Dactyl" Quotes from Famous Books

... a metrical foot consisting of three syllables, the first two short and the third long and accented; so called as the reverse of a dactyl, which has the first a long syllable, followed by two short ones. An anapaestic verse is one which only contains, or is mostly made up ...

— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... be substituted for another and not make the rhythm feel irregular. So long as the accent is not changed from the first syllable to the last, or from the last to the first, there is no jar in the flow of the lines. The trochee and the dactyl are interchangeable; and the iambus ...

— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... the difference of no less than seven syllables in a line betwixt the English and the Latin. Now the medium of these is about fourteen syllables, because the dactyl is a more frequent foot in hexameters than the spondee. But Holyday (without considering that he writ with the disadvantage of four syllables less in every verse) endeavours to make one of his lines to comprehend ...

— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden

... ears so different that it can be recognized at once. The rhythms are varied by the number of beats of the right hand to one of the left, and by the different degrees of speed with which the tune is played. The general beat may be compared to the dactyl of ancient Greek and Roman versification. The left hand plays the long syllable, if we may so speak, while the right plays the two short ones. The combinations, however, are as intricate as ...

— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... can make it. "Mattaire," said Dr. Johnson, "wrote Latin verses from time to time, and published a set in his old age, which he called Senilia, in which he shows so little learning or taste in writing, as to make Carteret a dactyl." [iv. 335.] Hereupon we have this note: "The editor does not understand this objection, nor the following observation." The following observation, which Mr. Croker cannot understand, is simply this: "In matters of genealogy," says Johnson, "it is necessary to give the bare names as they are. ...

— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay