iamb; iambic foot
Technical term in poetry for a metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Used in discussions of Western and Japanese poetic meter.
Shakespeare's sonnets are mainly written in iambic meter.
Compound of 抑揚 (よくよう, 'rise and fall; intonation') and 格 (かく, 'norm; pattern; case'), referring to the metrical pattern of an iamb.