Trochee
In poetic meter, a trochee /ˈtroʊkiː/, choree, or choreus, is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one, in English, or a heavy syllable followed by a light one in Latin or Greek. In this respect, a trochee is the reverse of an iamb.
The adjective form is trochaic.
Etymology
Trochee comes from French trochée, adapted from Latin trochaeus, originally from the Greek τροχός (trokhós), "wheel", from the phrase trokhaios pous, literally "running foot"; along with choree from χορός, khorós, "dance"; both convey the "rolling" rhythm of this metrical foot. The phrase was adapted into English in the late 16th century.
Examples
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha, whose meter was taken from Elias Lönnrot's Kalevala, is written almost entirely in trochees, barring the occasional substitution (iamb, spondee, pyrrhic, etc.).
In the second line, "and tra-" is a Pyrrhic substitution, as are "With the" in the third and fourth lines and "of the" in the third. Even so, the dominant foot throughout the poem is the trochee.
Trochaic septenarius
In ancient Greek and Latin literature, the trochaic septenarius is one of two major forms of poetic metre based on the trochee as its dominant rhythmic unit, the other being trochaic octonarius. It is used in drama and less often in poetry.
The trochaic septenarius is a catalectic line; that is, it consists of eight trochaic feet, with the last a half-foot. Only the seventh foot is regularly trochaic. The other feet can be varied with a spondee, dactyl, tribrach, or more rarely an anapaest. There is usually a diaeresis after the fourth foot. It is sometimes called catalectic trochaic tetrameter.
An example can be found in the Pervigilium Veneris ("Vigil of Venus");
The trochaic septenarius is the only trochaic meter used in the dialogue portions of Latin plays (as distinguished from the cantica or sung portions), and was the favorite meter of Plautus. Its most famous singular use in Latin literature is possibly the ribald versus quadratus sung by the soldiers at the Gallic triumph of Julius Caesar.
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