Editing Choliamb (section)

{{Short description|Greek and Latin poetic verse form}}
{{distinguish|Choriamb}}
{{Greek and Latin metre|sidebar}}
'''Choliambic verse''' ({{langx|grc|χωλίαμβος}}), also known as '''limping iambs''' or '''scazons''' or '''halting iambic''',<ref>{{harvtxt|Murray|1903|p=88}}.</ref> is a form of [[meter (poetry)|meter]] in poetry. It is found in both [[Ancient Greek literature|Greek]] and [[Latin literature|Latin]] poetry in the [[classical antiquity|classical period]]. Choliambic verse is sometimes called ''scazon'', or "lame iambic", because it brings the reader down on the wrong "foot" by reversing the stresses of the last few beats.  It was originally pioneered by the Greek [[lyric poet]] [[Hipponax]], who wrote "lame trochaics" as well as "lame iambics".

The basic structure is much like [[iambic trimeter]], except that the last [[cretic]] is made heavy by the insertion of a [[Long syllable|longum]] instead of a [[syllable weight|breve]]. Also, the third [[anceps]] of the iambic trimeter line must be short in limping iambs. In other words, the line scans as follows (where '''—''' is a long syllable, '''⏑''' is a short syllable, and '''×''' is an [[anceps]]):

:× — ⏑ — | × — ⏑ — | ⏑ — — —

As in all classical verse forms, the phenomenon of [[brevis in longo]] is observed, so the last [[syllable]] can actually be short or long.