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In a line of poetry written in perfect iambic pentameter, there are five unstressed syllables, each of which is followed by a stressed syllable. Each pair of syllables is a metrical foot called an iamb. Much of the greatest poetry in English has been written in iambic pentameter; Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton used it more than any other meter. Robert Frost's line "I'm going out to clean the pasture spring" is an example of it; his "And miles to go before I sleep" is instead an example of iambic tetrameter, with only four accented syllables.
Examples of pentameter in a Sentence
Max Goldbart, Deadline, 11 June 2025
Even Pope settled for iambic pentameter when translating Homer, rather than the epics’ dactylic hexameter.
—William Logan, New York Times, 11 Apr. 2025
A couple of regional and college theaters are ending their regular seasons in April with Shakespeare plays, and a couple of other events are on tap to keep the iambic pentameter flowing.
—Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 20 Apr. 2025
The dialogue is both realist, full of the ejaculations and repetitions that characterize human speech, and poetic, with only the occasional anapest interrupting the poem’s iambic pentameter.
—Maggie Doherty, The New Yorker, 24 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for pentameter
Cite this Entry
“Pentameter.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pentameter. Accessed 2 Jul. 2025.
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pentameter
noun
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