common meter
Hymn's standard pattern
Common meter is a verse pattern alternating lines of eight and six syllables, with an iambic rhythm and an ABAB rhyme scheme.
It's the standard form of English hymns—"Amazing Grace" and most entries in traditional hymnals follow it.
The pattern also underlies many ballads and nursery rhymes.
Sometimes called common measure or abbreviated C.M.
Verse rhythm type
- tetrameterFour-foot poetic line
- trimeterThree metrical feet
- alternatingOccurring in turns
- quatrainFour-line poetic unit
stanza · rhyme · abab · syllable · stress · foot · scansion · metrical
Religious song of praise
- psalmSacred scriptural song
- carolFestive seasonal song
- anthemOfficial song of praise
- doxologyHymn of divine praise
canticle · ballad · spiritual · worship · liturgy · sacred · devotion · gospel
Account of events
- folkloreInherited cultural narratives
- storytellingRecounting events aloud
- folk songTraditional community music
- oral traditionCulture passed by speech
refrain · tale · legend · broadside · minstrel · traditional · Scottish · English
iambic
Verse rhythm type
- tetrameterFour-foot poetic line
- trimeterThree metrical feet
- alternatingOccurring in turns
quatrain · stanza · rhyme · abab · syllable · stress · foot · scansion · metrical · verse
hymn
Religious song of praise
doxology · canticle · ballad · spiritual · worship · liturgy · sacred · devotion · gospel · praise
narrative
Account of events
- folkloreInherited cultural narratives
- storytellingRecounting events aloud
- folk songTraditional community music
oral tradition · refrain · tale · legend · broadside · minstrel · traditional · Scottish · English · Irish
- Emily DickinsonEmily Dickinson, poems, fascicles, dashes, Lavinia
- verse formshaiku, couplet, limerick, quatrain, sonnet
- hymn meterseights, sevens, sixes, tens
- Hymnodyhymnals, hymnbooks, hymn books, psalmody, hymnody
- meteriamb, trochee, spondee, dactyl, anapest
- poetic metersiambic pentameter, heroic couplet, fourteener
common meterfree verse
Poetry without fixed structure
prose poetry · sprung rhythm · hexameter · blank verse · fourteeners
common, meter, commonly, uncommon, communal, uncommonly, commonality, commonness, commonsense