A poetical foot of three sylables (-- ~ ~), one long followed by two short, or one accented followed by two unaccented; as, L. tëgmine, E. mer'ciful; -- so called from the similarity of its arrangement to that of the joints of a finger.
A finger or toe; a digit.
a metrical foot of three syllables, only the first accented.
a metrical foot consisting of three syllables, a stressed beat followed by two unstressed beats (' ––).
(COD 8) a metrical foot consisting of one long (or stressed) syllable followed by two short (or unstressed). a foot of three beats, the first stressed, the second and the third unstressed.
metron that resembles, at least aurally, a finger ( Gk. dactylos). A dactyl has one long syllable plus two short syllables: .
A metrical foot of three syllables: an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables.
a metrical unit with stressed-unstressed-unstressed syllables
a finger or toe in human beings or corresponding part in other vertebrates
a metrical foot consisting of a long sound followed by two short sounds (BEEEEAT beat-beat)
a metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables, as in the words technical (TEK nik l), allocate (AL oh kate), and harbinger (HAR bin jer)
a metrical foot consisting of one long (or stressed) syllable and two short (or unstressed) syllables
a poetic foot of THREE syllables (long, short, short, denoted here for convenience as (-
a unit of the meter (or beat) of a line of poetry
referring to a finger (_Phoenix dactylifera_, the date palm, = "finger-bearing," referring to shape of the fruit cluster)
DACTYLIC A metrical foot of three syllables, the first of which is long or accented and the next two short or unaccented, as in MER-rily or LOV-er boy, or from Byron's " The Bride of Abydos": KNOW ye the | LAND where the | CY-press and | MYR-tle Sidelight: Except for their use in humorous light verse, dactylic lines are now infrequent in English poetry. (See also Double Dactyl, Meter, Rhythm)
A metrical foot of three syllables, one long (or stressed) followed by two short (or unstressed), as in happily. The dactyl is the reverse of the anapest.
literally a finger or fingerlike projection on an insect body part
A foot consisting of three syllables where the first is long or stressed and the second two are short or unstressed e.g. as in 'MURmuring'.
A dactyl (Gr. δάκτυλος dáktulos, “fingerâ€) is an element of meter in poetry. In quantitative verse, such as Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables. The word "strawberry" is a dactyl, as is the word "poetry," as pointed out in the New York Times Crossword Puzzle (Will Shortz, ed.) for May 31, 2006.