Words & WritingGreek → English
Iamb
/ˈaɪæmb/noun
A metrical foot of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed, or in Greek one short then one long.
The Greek roots
ἴαμβος
íambos
iambic foot, lampoon
Literally: “an iambos, a foot of lampoon verse”
Follow a root:ἴαμβος1 word
The story of the word
Ancient writers connected the word to Ἰάμβη, the servant at Eleusis whose crude jokes made the grieving Demeter laugh; scholars now treat that as folk etymology built backwards from the metre's use. The metre belonged to invective. Archilochus used it to destroy the reputation of a man who broke off his daughter's engagement, and the tradition was that both daughters hanged themselves. English poetry runs on the iamb because English speech does.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
iambictrocheedactylanapaest
In a sentence
Five iambs a line, more or less, and Shakespeare varies it whenever it matters.