iamb
/ˈaɪˌæm/noun
iamb is a noun meaning “A metrical foot in verse consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled I-A-M-B and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 43 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of iamb is iambs.
What does iamb mean?
noun
- 1
A metrical foot in verse consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce iamb?
- UK /ˈaɪəm/
- UK /ˈaɪˌæm/
- US /ˈaɪˌæm/
Iamb has 2 syllables (counted from the pronunciation).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-iamb.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of iamb
- iambs plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is iamb?
Iamb appears about once in every 43 million words in written English, the 201,693rd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Iamb in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a metrical foot:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does iamb come from?
From French iambe in the mid-1800s, from Latin ïambus, from Ancient Greek ἴαμβος (íambos). Displaced iambus which shares the same classical origin.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).