jambus

Jambus, known in English as iamb, is a metrical foot in poetry consisting of two syllables in which the first is unstressed and the second is stressed. The term derives from the Greek iambos (via Latin iambus). In German prosody the same pattern is called Jambus, a direct adaptation of the name.

In English verse, the iamb has become the most common foot, especially in iambic pentameter, a line typically containing five iambs. This creates the familiar da-DUM rhythm that underpins much of Shakespeare, Milton, and their successors. A simple iamb is the two-syllable word behold, where the emphasis falls on the second syllable; until is another common example. Feet can be combined into longer meters (pentameter, tetrameter, trimeter), letting poets vary line length and pace. The rhythm may be altered by substitutions or feminine endings to achieve emphasis or variation.

Outside English, the concept of the jambus appears in many languages with respective stress patterns, and in German poetry the term is used to describe the same two-syllable unstressed-stressed pattern. As a basic unit of meter, the jambus interacts with other feet to shape a poem's overall cadence and musicality.