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cinquain

 - 3 dictionary results

cin⋅quain

  [sing-keyn, sing-keyn]
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–noun
1. a group of five.
2. Prosody.
a. a short poem consisting of five, usually unrhymed lines containing, respectively, two, four, six, eight, and two syllables.
b. any stanza of five lines.
Origin:
1705–15; < F < LL cinque (see cinque ) + F -ain collective suffix. See quatrain
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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cin·quain   (sĭng'kān', sāng'-)   
n.  A five-line stanza.

[French cinq, five (from Old French cinc; see cinque) + (quatr)ain.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Encyclopedia

cinquain

a five-line stanza. The American poet Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914), applied the term in particular to a five-line verse form of specific metre that she developed. Analogous to the Japanese verse forms haiku and tanka, it has two syllables in its first and last lines and four, six, and eight in the intervening three lines and generally has an iambic cadence. An example is her poem "November Night": Listen With faint dry soundLike steps of passing ghosts,the leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the treesAnd fall

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
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