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Definition of "stanza" [stan•za]

  • One of the divisions of a poem, composed of two or more lines usually characterized by a common pattern of meter, rhyme, and number of lines. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "stanza" in a sentence
  • "This stanza is the only one that, in both the letter text and the broadside version of Shelley's poem, replicates the idea of an entire stanza of The Devil's Thoughts by R. Southey and S.T. Coleridge (1799), which reads in a note to J."
  • "I missed the one where I had to select a stanza from the national anthem."
  • "The first stanza is about vitality, about life, about something precious that has been lost."