prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (Default)
prettygoodword ([personal profile] prettygoodword) wrote2006-03-13 07:20 am

quatorzain

quatorzain - n., a fourteen-line poem, esp. a sonnet.


From French quatorze, fourteen, + -ain, an obscure suffix meaning stanza of that many lines. Currently, some try to make this mean any fourteen-line poem that ISN'T a sonnet, but originally it was used to distinguish the form we now call a sonnet from all the other "little songs" called sonnets.

---L.