One or more unstressed syllables at the beginning of a line of verse or a musical passage that come before the regular metrical pattern; also called an upbeat.
From Greek ana- (back) + krousis (striking), from krouein (to strike). The term originally described a musical upbeat and was adopted into prosody (the study of verse) by 19th-century scholars.
Think of 'de-DUM de-DUM'—that first soft 'de' pulls you back into the rhythm like an upbeat, and many famous songs use this trick to make music feel natural and bouncy!
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