disyllable, dissyllable, n. (a.)
(daɪ-, dɪˈsɪləb(ə)l)
Also 6 dissill-, 7 dyssyll-.
[f. F. dissyllabe, in 16th c. dissillabe (see above); after syllable, F. syllabe. For spelling, see disyllabic.]
A. n. A word, or metrical foot, consisting of two syllables.
| 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie ii. xii[i]. (Arb.) 128 For wordes monosyllables..if they be tailed one to another, or th'one to a dissillable or polyssillable ye ought to allow them that time that best serues your purpose and pleaseth your eare most. 1668 Wilkins Real Char. 416 Expressed..in Dyssyllables by repeating the second Radical Consonant after the last Vowel. 1874 Sweet Eng. Sounds 47 Dissyllables ending in a vowel..are almost always lengthened. 1883 Liddell & Scott Greek-Eng. Lex. δισυλλαβέω..to use as a disyllable. 1887 Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue (ed. 4) §174 The plural ‘aches’..appears as a disyllable in Shakspeare, Butler, and Swift. 1889 R. Ellis Comment. on Catullus p. xxvii, In the short elegy to Hortulus the pentameter ends four times with a disyllable, four times with a trisyllable. |
B. as adj. = disyllabic.
| 1749 Numbers in Poet. Comp. 17 They are compounded of two dissyllable Feet. 1824 L. Murray Eng. Gram. (ed. 5) I. 348 Dissyllable nouns in er: as, ‘Cánker, b{uacu}tter’, have the accent on the former syllable. |