Distich.—A synonym for "couplet," but of wider range, as there is no reason why the verses should be metrically similar. There is, however, in the practical use of the word, an understanding that there shall be a certain completeness and self-containedness of sense.
Ditrochee.—A double trochee—long, short, long, short ( ̄ ̆ ̄ ̆ ).—The remarks on the di-iamb apply here, but not quite so strongly. There are a few exceptional cases in Milton, as in the famous "Ūnĭvērsăl reproach," where the ditrochaic effect, whether beautiful or not, is too noticeable not to deserve specific definition.
Dochmiac.—A foot of five syllables, admitting, with the possible permutations of long and short in the five places, a large number of variations. This foot, not strictly necessary even in Greek prosody, is quite unknown in English, and, if used, would simply split itself up into batches of two and three. But it probably has a real existence in the systematisation of English prose rhythm.
Doggerel.—A word (the derivation of which can be only, though easily, guessed) as old as Chaucer; always used with depreciating intent, but with a certain difference, not to say looseness, of exact connotation. Doggerel is often applied to slipshod or sing-song verse; sometimes to verse burlesque or feeble in sense and phrase. But it is better restricted to verse metrically incompetent by false rhythm and quantification, or by insufficient or superfluous provision of syllables and the like.
Duple.—A term used by some prosodists in combination with "time" and in contradistinction to "triple," to express a characteristic of verse which is nearest to music, and which perhaps is musical rather than really prosodic. Controversies are sometimes carried on in regard to the question whether trisyllabic feet (such as anapæsts, dactyls, and tribrachs) are, when substituted for dissyllabic, in "duple" or in "triple" time; but this question appears to the present writer irrelevant and extraneous.
Elision.—The obliteration of a syllable, for metrical reasons, when a vowel at the end of a word comes before one at the beginning of another. This strict classical meaning of the term is extended ordinarily, in the English use of it, to the omission of a syllable within a word, or the fusion of two in any of the various ways indicated by the classical terms crasis ("mixture"), thlipsis ("crushing"), syncope ("cutting short"), synalœpha ("smearing together"), synizesis ("setting together"), synecphonesis ("combined utterance"), and others. Perhaps the most useful phraseology in English indicates "elision" for actual vanishing of a vowel (when it is usually represented by an apostrophe), and "slur" for running of two into one. These two processes are of extreme importance, for upon the view taken of them turns the view to be held of Shakespeare's and Milton's blank verse, and of a large number of other measures.
End-Stopped.—A term largely applied, especially in Shakespearian discussion, to the peculiar self-contained verse which is noticeable in the early stage of blank-verse writing, and which Shakespeare was one of the first to break through. In the text of the present volume this form is called "single-moulded," its characteristics not appearing to be confined to the end.
Enjambment.—An Englishing, on simple analogy, of the French technical term, enjambement, for the overlapping, in sense and utterance, of one verse on another, or of one couplet on another. Enjambment of the couplet appears in Chaucer and other writers early; was overdone and abused in the first half of the seventeenth century; was rejected by the later seventeenth and still more by the eighteenth, but restored to favour by the Romantic movement.
Envoi.—The coda of a ballade, etc., with the especial purpose of addressing the poem to its subject.