mismetre

English

Verb

mismetre (third-person singular simple present mismetres, present participle mismetring, simple past and past participle mismetred)

1. Alternative form of mismeter
   • 1513, Virgil, translated by Gavin Douglas, Æneid:

     They neither maul nor mismetre his rhyme;

   • 1891, Edward Augustus Freeman, Sir Arthur Evans, The History of Sicily from the Earliest Times, page 264:

     For this he quotes and mismetres a fragment Kallimachos.

   • 2003, Ruth Kennedy, Richard Spalding, Three Alliterative Saints' Hymns, page xxxvii:

     From the evidence of other witnesses to alliterative texts copied by Thornton (as, for instance, by comparing the four dissimilar manuscripts of Awntyrs or the two each of Truelove and The Palement of Thre Ages) it can be seen that, although Thornton is a careful scribe and almost never mismetres a line into duple, alternating rhythms, he shows an eagerness to smooth out and add explanatory pleonasms by inserting fillers such as ful, frequently supplying full forms where an aphetic one was metrical, and altering the metrical pattern of the b-verses to make triple-beat 'anapaestic' lines.

Anagrams

• meristem, mimester, mismeter, stemmier