noun

• 1The first section of an ancient Greek choral ode or of one division of it.

  ‘Most celebrated were the Epodes, songs in simple strophes usually made up of a hexameter or iambic trimeter plus one or two shorter cola.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘For example, in Schubert's Heidenröslein three verses, or strophes, are set to the same melody, with no alterations to the voice part or the piano accompaniment.’
  • ‘It puts an end to the cyclic character of the six strophes and opens the door back into quotidian time.’
  • ‘One female sang two short strophes of a typically male song.’
  • ‘We measured song repertoire size as the number of different song figures in 25 consecutive song strophes.’
  • ‘Frequency and strophe length were measured in narrow and wide band modes, respectively.’
  • ‘The distance between the two vertical arrows indicates the strophe length.’

  Synonyms

  stanza, strophe, stave, canto

  1. 1.1A group of lines forming a section of a lyric poem.
     ‘It deals with the time factor employed in or between lines or units or strophes of poetry.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘The most usual skaldic metre is ‘dróttkvaett ’, a strophe which consists of eight six-syllable lines, each ending in a trochee.’
     • ‘Fourthly, there is a subtle, but powerful alliteration in the fourth line of the second strophe, ‘Amidst an ocean full of flying fishes’.’
     • ‘The poem's initial strophe is careful, slow-moving, tonally sophisticated, and somewhat puzzling.’
     • ‘The poem's closing strophe shows how Kaufman had become a master in capturing the lyrical qualities of the music and bringing them to bear in his poetry.’
     • ‘There are surreal poems like ‘Battle Report,’ with its opening strophe.’
     • ‘Her specific topics are seen as well in the first strophe, along with a judgment of the quality of her voice.’
     • ‘Such are the strophes exchanged between America's intellectual divinities.’