CATALECTIC

Some ago I wrote about the book The Know-It-All, by A. J. Jacobs, a story about a man who imposed himself the task of reading the whole Encyclopedia Britannica. Well, after this I started myself to read two dictionaries: the Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics and the O.C.D. of Literature (What? You know that even the most stupid idea gets a bunch of followers. Besides, it´s not that bad!) It is not as boring as you may think and once in a while I find some pearls, like this one,

Catalectic: Lacking the final syllable expected in the regular pattern of a metrical verse line. The term is most often used of the common English trochaic line in which the optional final unstressed syllable is not used. Of these lines from Shelley´s ‘To a Skylark’, the second and the fourth are catalectic:

In the golden lighting
Of the sunken sun.
O’er which clouds are bright’ning.
Thou dost float and run