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Mar 18, 2005

This week's theme
Words related to the number eleven

This week's words
undecennary
elevenses
hendecagon
eleventh hour
hendecasyllabic

This week's comments
AWADmail 157

Next week's theme
Words to describe people

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hendecasyllabic

adjective: Having eleven syllables.
noun: A word or line of eleven syllables.

[From Latin hendecasyllabus, from Greek hendekasyllabos, from hendeca- (eleven), from hen, neuter of heis (one) + deka (ten), + syllabic.]

Read Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Hendecasyllabics.

"There are those long, elaborate, beautifully balanced sentences, with their trailing clusters of dependent clauses, frequently so arranged as to reproduce the characteristic hendecasyllabic rhythms of Italian poetry."
T. Gwynfor Griffith; Obituary: Professor G.H. McWilliam; Independent (London, UK); Jan 11, 2001.

"If he were alive today, the great Roman poet, Catullus, master of the hendecasyllabic metre, would likely be front and centre in the savage war on words and the importance of hourly grammar drills in the Alberta education system."
Bill Sass; The Savage War on Words And the Particulars of Grammar; Edmonton Journal (Canada); Nov 8, 2001.

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