In poetry and music, a metrical foot or rhythmic pattern consisting of two long syllables followed by two short syllables (or stressed-unstressed in music).
From Greek antispastos, pulling back against, from anti- (against) + spastus (drawn or pulled). The term comes from classical poetry where this meter was identified and named by Greek and Roman scholars analyzing verse patterns.
The antispast meter was particularly common in ancient Greek choral poetry and comedy—poets could create distinctive rhythmic effects by reversing the more common iamb pattern, giving their verses a unique bouncing quality that audiences recognized immediately.
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