spondee
Americannoun
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a foot of two syllables, both of which are long in quantitative meter or stressed in accentual meter.
noun
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prosody a metrical foot consisting of two long syllables ( )
Etymology
Origin of spondee
1350–1400; Middle English sponde < Latin spondēus < Greek spondeîos, derivative of spondḗ libation
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In poetic terms, the name is a spondee, two syllables in a row that claim equal force, disrupting the lilt of ordinary speech, like a command or a shout: Shut up, no way, get out.
From New York Times • Sep. 11, 2019
It was a metrically auspicious birth date — the spondee “ONE, TEN” resounding like slaps on a baby’s bottom, the anapest “twenty-EIGHT” hurtling toward the future.
From New York Times • Feb. 15, 2015
Perhaps it's not strictly a spondee, but, in bagging a line all to itself, the word seems to insist on taking two full stresses: well come!
From The Guardian • Mar. 29, 2010
There's a lovely contrast between the skippety dactyl of "Merry mites" and the surprising, ceremonious spondee, "Welcome".
From The Guardian • Mar. 29, 2010
There can be no very general agreement among readers as to the degree of accent necessary to change a pair of syllables from an "iambus" to a "pyrrhic" or a "spondee."
From English Verse Specimens Illustrating its Principles and History by Alden, Raymond MacDonald
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.