Trochee

Metrical feet

Disyllables
˘ ˘	pyrrhus, dibrach
˘ ¯	iamb
¯ ˘	trochee, choree
¯ ¯	spondee
Trisyllables
˘ ˘ ˘	tribrach
¯ ˘ ˘	dactyl
˘ ¯ ˘	amphibrach
˘ ˘ ¯	anapest, antidactylus
˘ ¯ ¯	bacchius
¯ ¯ ˘	antibacchius
¯ ˘ ¯	cretic, amphimacer
¯ ¯ ¯	molossus
Number of feet per line
one	Monometer
two	Dimeter
three	Trimeter
four	Tetrameter
five	Pentameter
six	Hexameter
seven	Heptameter
eight	Octameter
See main article for tetrasyllables.

A trochee (/ˈtroʊkiː/) (also called a choree or choreus) is a metrical foot used in English verse consisting of a stressed syllable syllable followed by an unstressed one.

Definition

• Trochaic (trochaic) n. Tro*cha"ic (Pros.)

1. A trochaic verse or measure . Dryden.

• Trochaic (trochaic) a. Tro*cha"ic [L. trochaïcus, Gr. (?) or (?). See Trochee.]

1. (Pros.) Of or pertaining to trochees; consisting of trochees; as, trochaic measure or verse.

• Trochee (trochee) n. Tro"chee [L. trochaeus]

1. A foot of two syllables, the first long and the second short, as in the Latin word ante, or the first accented and the second unaccented, as in the English word motion; a choreus.

Etymology

Trochee comes from the Greek τροχός, trokhós, wheel, and choree from χορός, khorós, dance; both convey the "rolling" rhythm of this metrical foot.

Examples

"Hiawatha"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha is written almost entirely in trochees, barring the occasional substitution.

Should you ask me, whence these stories?

Whence these legends and traditions,

With the odours of the forest,

With the dew and damp of meadows,

In the second line, "and tra-" substitutes a is a Pyrrhic substitution (substituting foot of two unsressed syllables, as is "of the" in the third. Even so, the dominant foot throughout the poem is the trochee. Apart from Song of Hiawatha, this metre is rarely found in perfect examples, at least in English. This is from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven":

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Trochaic meter is also seen among the works of William Shakespeare:

Double, double, toil and trouble;

Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Children's verse

Perhaps owing to its simplicity, though, trochaic meter is fairly common in children's rhymes:

Peter, Peter pumpkin-eater

Had a wife and couldn't keep her.

Trochaic meter in iambic verse

Often a few trochees will be interspersed among iambs in the same lines to develop a more complex or syncopated rhythm. Compare (William Blake):

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright

In the forests of the night

These lines are primarily trochaic, with the last syllable dropped Catalectic trochaic tetrameter) so that the line ends with a stressed syllable to give a strong rhyme or masculine rhyme. By contrast, the intuitive way that the mind groups the syllables in later lines in the same poem makes them feel more like iambic lines with the first syllable dropped (headless iambic tetrameter):

Did he smile his work to see?

In fact the surrounding lines by this point have become entirely iambic:

When the stars threw down their spears

And watered Heaven with their tears

. . .

Did he who made the lamb make thee?

In fact, because iambic and trochaic rhythms both follow the same pattern of alternating stressed and unstressed syllales (but differ only in which syllable follows the other in a foot), the catalectic iambic meter and headless trochic meter scan exactly the same. Take, for instance W.H. Auden's "Lullaby":

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
[...]

It's only the presence of a few regularly iambic lines

But in my arms till break of day

And fashionable madmen raise

The hermit's carnal ecstacy

that allow one to identify the verse as iambic, not trochaic.

Other languages

Trochaic verse is also well-known in Latin poetry, especially of the medieval period. Since the stress never falls on the final syllable in Medieval Latin, the language is ideal for trochaic verse. The dies irae of the Requiem mass is a perfect example:

Dies irae, dies illa

Solvet saeclum in favilla

Teste David cum Sybilla.

The Finnish national epic Kalevala, like much old Finnish poetry, is written in a variation of trochaic tetrameter.

See also

• Trochaic inversion
• Glossary of poetry terms