iambus
/ʌɪˈambəs
/noun (plural iambuses or iambi /ʌɪˈambʌɪ/) Prosody
A metrical foot consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable.Of the five kinds of feet illustrated here, the iambus is by far the most often used in English verse; the spondee is the rarest....
- The metre throughout is iambic tetrameter, alternating with trimeter - in other words, lines of four iambuses alternate with lines of three.
- They consist of a collection of seventeen poems in different versions of the iambus, the metre traditionally associated with lampoon.
Origin
Late 16th century: Latin, from Greek iambos 'iambus, lampoon', from iaptein 'attack verbally' (because the iambic trimeter was first used by Greek satirists).