quatrain

noun

qua·​train ˈkwä-ˌtrān 

kwä-ˈtrān

: a unit or group of four lines of verse

Examples of quatrain in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Those wistful quatrains and sharp internal rhymes, tangled with that ceaseless longing and creamy high tenor, were my first lesson in prosody. — Emily Temple, Literary Hub, 11 Nov. 2025

The thundering poet termed the result uninspired and banal, so the other professor went into Dickinson’s 1,800-poem corpus, retrieved an obscure quatrain and presented it to the poet, who called the result banal and uninspired. — David Galef, Chicago Tribune, 21 Feb. 2025

Hammond gave Deep-speare’s quatrains very high marks for rhyme and rhythm. — Jey Han Lau, IEEE Spectrum, 30 Apr. 2020

Word History

Etymology

Middle French, from quatre four, from Latin quattuor

First Known Use

1584, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for quatrain

• abstain
• airplane
• alkane
• arcane
• arraign
• attain
• backplane
• betaine
• biplane
• blockchain
• butane
• campaign

Kids Definition

quatrain

noun

qua·​train ˈkwä-ˌtrān 

: a unit or group of four lines of verse