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| an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance. |
| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
| rhyme royal | |
| —n | |
| prosody a stanzaic form introduced into English verse by Chaucer, consisting of seven lines of iambic pentameter rhyming a b a b b c c | |
rhyme royal
seven-line iambic pentameter stanza rhyming ababbcc. The rhyme royal was first used in English verse in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde and The Parlement of Foules. Traditionally, the name rhyme royal is said to derive from The Kingis Quair ("The King's Book), attributed to James I of Scotland (1394-1437), but some critics trace the name to the French chant royal. Chaucer probably borrowed it from the French poet and musician Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-77), who may have invented it or derived it from earlier French and Provencal poets
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