poetry

The word “poetry” means literary writing arranged with attention to rhythm, sound, and imagery, often in verse. In plain terms, verse writing as an art form, or figuratively, a sense of beauty and depth in something.

“Poetry” is pronounced POH-ih-tree (/ˈpoʊ.ə.tɹi/ in IPA).

Here is “poetry” used in a sentence: “She majored in English with a focus on modern poetry.”

“Poetry” is a noun.

The word “poetry” comes from Old French. From Greek poietes, "maker, poet," via Old French poeterie.

“Poetry” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the B1 level.

“Poetry” has 2 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: literary writing arranged with attention to rhythm, sound, and imagery, often in verse.

Prose is ordinary written language arranged in sentences and paragraphs, the form used in essays, novels, and articles. Poetry is arranged with deliberate attention to rhythm, sound, and imagery, often broken into lines and verses. Poetry compresses meaning and prizes musicality, while prose flows in a more natural, continuous way.

Common forms include the sonnet, haiku, ballad, ode, limerick, and epic. Poems can also be grouped by style, such as lyric poetry expressing personal feeling, narrative poetry telling a story, and free verse, which abandons fixed rhyme and metre while still shaping rhythm and imagery.

No. While rhyme is a familiar feature of traditional verse, much poetry does not rhyme at all. Free verse and blank verse rely on rhythm, line breaks, imagery, and sound rather than a rhyme scheme. What defines poetry is careful attention to language, not the presence of rhyme.

Poetry captures emotion, experience, and ideas in a concentrated, memorable form that ordinary language often cannot. It sharpens attention to sound and meaning, preserves cultural memory, and lets writers explore feelings with precision. For readers, it offers pleasure, insight, and a deeper connection to language itself.