| 1. | Prosody. an unaccented syllable at the close of a line of poetry, often one that is added to the metrical pattern as an extra syllable. |
| 2. | Grammar. a termination or final syllable marking a feminine word: In Latin -ā is a feminine ending for the ablative case in the singular. |
| feminine ending n.
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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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