Dactyl (poetry)

A dactyl (Greek: δάκτυλος, dáktylos, “finger”) is a foot in poetic meter. In quantitative verse, often used in Greek or Latin, a dactyl is a long syllable followed by two short syllables, as determined by syllable weight. In accentual verse, often used in English, it is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables—the opposite is the anapaest (two unstressed followed by a stressed syllable). The Greek and Latin words δάκτυλος and dactylus are themselves dactyls (and hence autological). The English word poetry is also a dactyl. A useful mnemonic for remembering this long-short-short pattern is to consider the relative lengths of the three bones of a human finger: beginning at the knuckle, it is one long bone followed by two shorter ones (hence the name dactyl). This video is targeted to blind users. Attribution: Article text available under CC-BY-SA Creative Commons image source in video