| feminine ending | |
| —n | |
| prosody an unstressed syllable at the end of a line of verse | |
| a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal. |
| a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc. |
feminine ending
in prosody, a line of verse having an unstressed and usually extrametrical syllable at its end. In the opening lines from Robert Frost's poem "Directive," the fourth line has a feminine ending while the rest are masculine: Back out of all this now too much for us,Back in a time made simple by the lossOf detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather, There is a house that is no more a houseUpon a farm that is no more a farm And in a town that is no more a town.
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