Scansion
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The rhythm or meter of a line or verse. countable, uncountable
- 2 analysis of verse into metrical patterns wordnet
- 3 The act of analyzing the meter of poetry. countable, uncountable
- 1 Of text, to put into a rhythmic form or meter. transitive
"Many of my doggerels are scansioned from letters I've written to these children while they were incarcerated in those warehouses for the minority nuisance, laughingly called correctional facilities."
- 2 To impose patterns on. broadly, transitive
"The fine zigzag and diagonal interweavings, the nuances of varying intervals between the scansioned dots, show the enormous time and effort Polke invested in his complex, manual transfer method."
Example
More examples"Many of my doggerels are scansioned from letters I've written to these children while they were incarcerated in those warehouses for the minority nuisance, laughingly called correctional facilities."
Etymology
From Late Latin scansiōnem, accusative singular of scansiō (“the act of climbing”), from scandō (“I climb”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.