Choliambic verse is a form of meter

Meter (poetry)

In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...

 in poetry. It is found in both Greek

Ancient Greek literature

Ancient Greek literature refers to literature written in the Ancient Greek language until the 4th century.- Classical and Pre-Classical Antiquity :...

 and Latin

Latin literature

Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings of the ancient Romans. In many ways, it seems to be a continuation of Greek literature, using many of the same forms...

 poetry in the classical period

Classical antiquity

Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...

. Choliambic verse is sometimes called scazon, or "lame iambic", because it brings the reader down on the wrong "foot" by reversing the stresses of the last few beats. It was originally pioneered by the Greek lyric poet Hipponax

Hipponax

Hipponax of Ephesus and later Clazomenae was an Ancient Greek iambic poet who composed verses depicting the vulgar side of life in Ionian society in the sixth century BC...

, who wrote "lame trochaics" as well as "lame iambics"; the Latin poet Catullus

Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...

 provides a further example in Poem 8.

The basic structure is much like iambic trimeter

Iambic trimeter

iambic trimeter is a meter of poetry consisting of three iambic units per line.In ancient Greek poetry, iambic trimeter is a quantitative meter, in which a line consisted of three iambic metra and each metron consisted of two iambi...

, except that the last cretic

Cretic

A cretic is a metrical foot containing three syllables: long, short, long. In Greek poetry, the cretic was usually a form of paeonic or aeolic verse. However, any line mixing iambs and trochees could employ a cretic foot as a transition...

 is made heavy by the insertion of a longum instead of a breve

Syllable weight

In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. In classical poetry, both Greek and Latin, distinctions of syllable weight were fundamental to the meter of the line....

. Also, the third anceps

Anceps

In Greek and Latin meter, an anceps syllable is a syllable in a metrical line which can be either short or long. An anceps syllable may be called "free" or "irrational" depending on the type of meter being discussed....

 of the iambic trimeter line must be short in limping iambs. In other words, the line scans as follows (where ¯ is a longum, ˘ is a breve, and x is an anceps):

x ¯ ˘ ¯ | x ¯ ˘ ¯ | ˘ ¯ ¯ ¯

As in all classical verse forms, the phenomenon of brevis in longo

Brevis in longo

In Greek and Latin meter, a short syllable at the end of a line can be counted as long; this phenomenon is known as brevis in longo.The term comes from Latin, and means "a short [syllable] in place of a long [syllable]." Brevis in longo is possible in any classical meter that requires a long...

 is observed, so the last syllable

Syllable

A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...

can actually be short or long.