Foot

A foot is the basic unit of meter in poetry, a small group of syllables that holds one stressed beat and usually one or two unstressed ones.

A foot is one beat of a line and the syllables that go with it. In "The CURfew TOLLS the KNELL of PARTing DAY" (Thomas Gray, 1751), each pair of syllables is one foot, and there are five of them. The capital letters mark the stressed syllables.

What it is

Poets and teachers count the line in feet because the pattern repeats. The five common feet are the iamb, the trochee, the anapest, the dactyl and the spondee. Naming the foot and counting how many sit in a line gives you the meter, such as iambic pentameter.

An example to try

Take the word "remember". It has three syllables, with the stress in the middle: re-MEM-ber. In a line of verse, that word spans parts of two feet, which is why feet and words do not always line up. Count the beats first, then the feet, and you will not lose track. Marking a poem with a pencil, a slash between feet and a stress mark over the loud syllables, takes a minute a line and teaches the ear fast.

Why it matters to a writer or editor

A foot is the unit an editor checks when a line feels bumpy. Mark the stresses, split the line into feet, and the spot where the pattern breaks is easy to see. A break can be a mistake or a choice, and scansion is how you tell which.

Frequently asked questions

How many feet are in a line?

It depends on the meter. A line of iambic pentameter has five feet. A line of tetrameter has four and a line of trimeter has three.