doggerel
/ˈdɒɡ(ə)r(ə)l
/noun [mass noun]
1Comic verse composed in irregular rhythm: [as modifier]: doggerel verses...
- All the performers wore cloth caps, in token of the proletarian poet whose doggerel verses about the Tay Bridge and its collapse in 1879 provided the work's text.
- At that time the eighteen-year-old Victoria's feminine virules of sympathy and beauty were proclaimed in doggerel verse to the street ballad-reading public.
- Afterwards, he sits on the city hall steps reciting doggerel verses on the vagaries of the day's decisions.
1.1Verse or words that are badly written or expressed: the last stanza deteriorates into doggerel...
- This is the type of truly bad language-mangling doggerel written by old ladies that appears on the letters pages of local newspapers.
- Most of the work was amateurish - ridiculous doggerel written by unskilled poets.
- I was writing po-mo doggerel at the age of 12, in a way.
Origin
Late Middle English (as an adjective describing such verse): apparently from dog (used contemptuously, as in dog Latin) + -rel.