An
anapaest (also spelled
anapæst or
anapest, also called
antidactylus) is a
metrical foot used in formal
poetry. In classical quantitative meters it consists of two
short syllables followed by a
long one; in accentual stress meters it consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable. It may be seen as a reversed
dactyl. This word comes from the
Greek ανάπαιστος,
anápaistos, literally "struck back" (a dactyl reversed), from
ana and
-paistos, verbal of παίειν,
paíein "to strike."