What does decasyllabic mean?
Decasyllabic is an adjective meaning having ten syllables. It is chiefly a term of prosody, the study of poetic rhythm, where it most often describes a metrical line containing exactly ten syllables. The decasyllabic line has played a central role in European poetry: it underlies the classic ten-syllable line of French verse, and in English poetry it corresponds to the familiar five-stress line known as iambic pentameter, used by Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. The term can also describe individual words of unusual length that contain ten syllables, though this use is rarer. Decasyllabic is formal and technical in register, appearing almost exclusively in literary criticism, linguistics, and discussions of versification rather than casual conversation. It derives from the Greek elements deka, meaning ten, and syllabē, meaning syllable. Knowing the word allows precise description of poetic form, distinguishing a simple count of syllables from claims about stress patterns or meter.
adjectiveHaving or consisting of ten syllables; used especially of a line of verse containing exactly ten syllables.
- (of a word) consisting of ten syllables
- (of a line of verse) containing ten syllables, especially the standard ten-syllable line of French poetry and the basis of English iambic pentameter
"The poet favored a strict decasyllabic line throughout the sonnet sequence."
"The longest word in her vocabulary essay was an unwieldy decasyllabic monster."
"Chaucer helped establish the decasyllabic line as the dominant meter of English verse."
The decasyllabic line is the quiet backbone of English poetry — Shakespeare's famous iambic pentameter is simply a decasyllabic line with a particular stress pattern.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of decasyllabic
Decasyllabic comes from the Greek deka, meaning ten, combined with syllabē, meaning syllable, via the combining form -syllabic. The compound entered English through learned Latin and French usage during the early modern period, when scholars were codifying the principles of classical and vernacular versification. It shares its first element with words like decade, decimal, and decathlon, all ultimately from the same Greek root for ten.
How decasyllabic is actually used
A technical term of prosody and linguistics, found mainly in scholarly and literary-critical writing rather than everyday speech. It is purely descriptive — unlike 'iambic' or 'trochaic', it says nothing about where stresses fall.
Easily confused with decasyllabic
Hendecasyllabic describes lines of eleven syllables, whereas decasyllabic refers to lines of exactly ten.