quatrain

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

French quatre

French -ain

French quatrainbor.

English quatrain

Borrowed from French quatrain.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkwɒt.ɹeɪn/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

quatrain (plural quatrains)

1. A poem in four lines.
2. A stanza of four lines.

   Example:

   Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night,

   Has flung the Stone that puts the stars to flight:

   And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

   The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of light.

   • 1894 December 26, The Sketch, London, page 396, column 1:

     The menu card was designed by Mr. Arthur Hacker, and further enriched by some charming verses in Omarian quatrains from Mr. Le Gallienne, who read them to a sympathetic audience.

Synonyms

• (four-line stanza): tetrastich

Translations

a stanza of four lines

• Arabic: رُبَاعِيّ m (rubāʕiyy)
• Armenian: ռուբայի (hy) n (ṙubayi)
• Bulgarian: четиристишие n (četiristišie)
• Catalan: quartet m, quarteta f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 四行詩 / 四行诗 (zh) (sìhángshī), 四行連 / 四行连 (sìhánglián)

• Czech: čtyřverší n
• Danish: please add this translation if you can
• Dutch: kwatrijn (nl) n
• Estonian: katrään
• Finnish: nelisäe
• French: quatrain (fr) m
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: Quartett (de) n
• Hungarian: please add this translation if you can
• Indonesian: caturlarik (id), pantun (id), sajak empat baris (literally “four-line rhyme”)
• Italian: quartina (it) f
• Japanese: 四行連 (よんぎょうれん, yongyōren), クウォートレイン (kuwōtorein), クワトレイン (kuwatorein)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: çarîne (ku) f

• Latvian: please add this translation if you can
• Lithuanian: katrenas m
• Persian: رباعی (fa) (robâ'i)
• Polish: czterowiersz (pl) m, tetrastych m, kwartyna f
• Portuguese: quarteto (pt) m, quadra (pt) f
• Romanian: catren (ro) n
• Russian: четверости́шие (ru) n (četverostíšije), катре́н (ru) m (katrɛ́n)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: катрен m

  Latin: katren (sh) m

• Spanish: cuarteto (es) m, cuarteta (es) f, redondilla (es) f, serventesio m
• Swedish: quatrain c, kvadernar, kvatrin c, fyrrading c
• Tagalog: kuwarteta
• Turkish: dörtlük (tr)
• Ukrainian: please add this translation if you can
• Vietnamese: thơ bốn câu
• Yiddish: please add this translation if you can

See also

• couplet
• tercet
• terzain
• cinquain
• sestet
• septet
• octave

French

Etymology

From quatre (“four”) +‎ -ain.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ka.tʁɛ̃/

• Audio (Switzerland (Valais)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Vosges)):

  (file)

Noun

quatrain m (plural quatrains)

1. quatrain (stanza of four lines)

Further reading

• “quatrain”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012