Thursday 27 September 2007

A Word

In a formally satisfying & strikingly thematic follow-on to the previous Words post, this post is about a word, & that word is hexasyllable which Dictionary.com describes thus:

hex·a·syl·la·ble /ˈhɛksəˌsɪləbəl/ [hek-suh-sil-uh-buhl]
–noun- a word of six syllables

Ironically, hexasyllable is a word of only five syllables, or a pentasyllable. Pleasingly, pentasyllable is itself a pentasyllable. Word is a word of one syllable, but, sadly, syllable is a word of three syllables, or trisyllable, which is itself a word of four syllables or quadrisyllable, while quadrisyllable, being comprised of five syllables, is, of course, an example of the pentasyllable we met earlier. Quadrivalvular is, incidentally, also a pentasyllable, meaning possessed of four valves, while valve is described by Reference.com as:

1. any device for halting or controlling the flow of a liquid, gas, or other material through a passage, pipe, inlet, outlet, etc.
2. a hinged lid or other movable part that closes or modifies the passage in such a device.

3 comments:

Andrew said...

Surprised, a little disappointed, but also somewhat relieved at the lack of response to this post. I was sure it would set off some very heated & fascinating discussion, with a very real possibility of said heated discussion boiling over into downright hostility. Perhaps I over-estimated the zeitgeistian nature of the syllablical matter at hand.

Anonymous said...

Forgive the pedantry but "quadrisyllable" is a pentasyllable (not a hex).

Andrew said...

That's very true. I even mentioned it had five syllables. Thanks for the correction; I'll better amend it.