Are there any metrical (scansion) dictionaries?
There are plenty of rhyming dictionaries; is there such a thing as a metrical dictionary? Sometimes in fixed-form poetry, I need a word to fit a specific position in a line, and it would be really handy to have a database that organized words by syllable count and stress pattern, as well as rhyme. It would be useful for songwriting too.
Example use case: Suppose I am looking for a word that is an anapest (three syllables, two short followed by one long, like "billionaire"). It would be great to be able to query a scansion dictionary to be given a list of them.
A combined rhyme/scansion dictionary would be a killer app. So that if, let's say, I wanted (1) an anapest that (2) rhymes with "hair," I could query that, and be given a list of results (e.g. "billionaire" "debonair" "laissez-faire" etc.)
Does such a thing exist?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/6370. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
While I don't know of any straight dictionaries that organize words by number of syllables, many rhyming dictionaries will organize rhymes by how many syllables they contain, or by how many syllables rhyme. ("Example" is a three-syllable word that's a two-syllable rhyme with "ample" and a one-syllable rhyme with "steeple".)
0 comment threads
0 comment threads