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Iambic Trimeter

By N.S. Gill, About.com

Definition: Iambic Trimeter is a Greek meter used in Greek plays for speaking. An iambic foot is a short syllable followed by a long. The following is a representation of how a line of iambic trimeter would be scanned, with the 'u' indicating an unstressed syllable: u-u-|u-u-|u-u-. Since it is called trimeter, the line has three meters. A meter is also called a metron, the plural of which is metra. There are two iambic feet in a metron. It is not always the case that a metron has two feet, but it is in the case of iambs.

Iambic Trimeter can also have substitutions for the short syllable: x-u-|x-u-|x-u-.

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