Pros. [ad. L. tetrametr-us sb., a. Gr. τετράμετρ-ος adj., f. τετρα-, TETRA- + μέτρον measure. So F. tétramètre.] A verse or period consisting of four measures.
In ancient prosody, a trochaic, iambic, or anapæstic tetrameter consisted of four dipodies (= eight feet); in other rhythms a tetrameter was a tetrapody or period of four feet. The name was given specifically to the Trochaic Tetrameter Catalectic or Septenarius, as in ‘Crās a|mēt quī nūnqu’ a|māvit ǁ quīque a|māvit | crās a|mēt.’
1612. Selden, Illustr. Drayton’s Poly-olb., iv. 67. The first are couplets interchanged of xvi. & xiiii. feet,… the second of equall tetrameters.
1693. Dryden, Juvenal (1697), p. xli. He makes no difficulty to mingle Hexameters with Iambique Trimeters; or with Trochaique Tetrameters.
1837. Wheelwright, trans. Aristoph., I. 93. I ask … what thou thinkest the most perfect measure, The trimeter or the tetrameter?
1869. Tozer, Highl. Turkey, II. 250. The metre … is the iambic tetrameter catalectic.
b. attrib. or as adj.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch, V. 272. A poem, entitled Pontius Glaucus,… written by him [Cicero], when a boy, in tetrameter verse.
1811. Elmsley, in Edin. Rev., Nov., 72. To introduce these refractory names into tetrameter trochaics, Aristophanes has twice used a choriambus, and once an ionic a minore, in the place of the regular trochaic dipodia.
1827. Tate, Grk. Metres, § 10.
