A metrical unit in classical poetry consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables (like a finger with one long bone and two short bones).
From Greek daktylos (finger), chosen because a finger has one long bone followed by two shorter bones—the structure mirrors the stressed-unstressed-unstressed syllable pattern perfectly.
The ancient Greeks named this poetry meter 'finger' because the stress pattern literally matches your finger's anatomy—poetry and anatomy were connected in ways that seem wild to us now.
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