hendecasyllabicadj.n.

1704 tr. A. Furetière Rebellion vii. 49 What will their Lame Phrases with Dulcifyed and Effeminate Words be able to do, when they shall find themselves attacked by Strong and Robust Terms, as Heautontimoroumeno's, Amphitryoniades's Sycnathegorematicks and other Hendecasyllabick Polyphemuses [Fr. Polyphémes Endecasyllabiques]?

1728 E. Chambers Cycl. (at cited word) Sapphic, and Phaleuc Verses, are Hendecasyllables, or Hendecasyllabic.

a1819 R. Watt Bibliotheca Brit. (1824) I. at Boscan, John Almogaver Spanish poetry owes to him [sc. Boscan] the introduction of the hendecasyllabic verse.

1845 Encycl. Metrop. XXV. 818 Amand Daniel invented the Hendecasyllabic metre, which was chosen by Dante for his earlier compositions.

1878 J. A. Himes Study of Milton's Paradise Lost xiv. 279 By common consent the final short syllable in a hendecasyllabic line has been neglected in the metre.

1994 I. Navarrete Orphans of Petrarch iii. 109 By infusing hendecasyllabic poetry with an erotic polysemy proper to the Castilian tradition, Garcilaso seeks both to show and to criticize the ultimate focus of Petrarchan fetishism.

1795 R. Lyne Introd. Bk. for Gram.-schools: Latin Primer iii. 163 This class..may itself be subdivided into three species more, namely, Choriambics, Hendecasyllabics, Anapestics.

1873 W. Wagner tr. W. S. Teuffel Hist. Rom. Lit. II. 128 Martial..frequently uses hendecasyllabics and choliambics.

1902 G. Saintsbury Hist. Crit. (ed. 2) I. iii. ii. 430 He includes in this last class sovramagnificentissimamente, a hendecasyllabic in itself.

2002 R. Hadas in A. Finch & K. Varnes Exalt. of Forms 82 Why Tennyson and Frost, splendid practitioners of blank verse, and Auden, the restless technician, occasionally chose hendecasyllabics for particular kinds of poems is an intriguing question.