POEM

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does poem mean? 

• POEM (noun)
  The noun POEM has 1 sense:

1. a composition written in metrical feet forming rhythmical lines

  Familiarity information: POEM used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POEM (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A composition written in metrical feet forming rhythmical lines

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

poem; verse form

Hypernyms ("poem" is a kind of...):

literary composition; literary work (imaginative or creative writing)

Meronyms (parts of "poem"):

line of poetry; line of verse (a single line of words in a poem)

canto (a major division of a long poem)

verse; verse line (a line of metrical text)

stanza (a fixed number of lines of verse forming a unit of a poem)

poetic rhythm; prosody; rhythmic pattern ((prosody) a system of versification)

rhyme; rime (correspondence in the sounds of two or more lines (especially final sounds))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "poem"):

abecedarius (a poem having lines beginning with letters of the alphabet in regular order)

Alcaic; Alcaic verse (verse in the meter used in Greek and Latin poetry consisting of strophes of 4 tetrametric lines; reputedly invented by Alcaeus)

ballad; lay (a narrative poem of popular origin)

ballade (a poem consisting of 3 stanzas and an envoy)

blank verse (unrhymed verse (usually in iambic pentameter))

elegy; lament (a mournful poem; a lament for the dead)

epic; epic poem; epos; heroic poem (a long narrative poem telling of a hero's deeds)

free verse; vers libre (unrhymed verse without a consistent metrical pattern)

haiku (an epigrammatic Japanese verse form of three short lines)

lyric; lyric poem (a short poem of songlike quality)

rondeau; rondel (a French verse form of 10 or 13 lines running on two rhymes; the opening phrase is repeated as the refrain of the second and third stanzas)

sonnet (a verse form consisting of 14 lines with a fixed rhyme scheme)

tanka (a form of Japanese poetry; the 1st and 3rd lines have five syllables and the 2nd, 4th, and 5th have seven syllables)

terza rima (a verse form with a rhyme scheme: aba bcb cdc, etc.)

rhyme; verse (a piece of poetry)

versicle (a short verse said or sung by a priest or minister in public worship and followed by a response from the congregation)

 Context examples 

Beauty and wonder had departed from him, and as he read the poems he caught himself puzzling as to what he had had in mind when he wrote them.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He did not understand, and I quickly learned that he did not know the poem.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

At other times he repeated my favourite poems, or drew me out into arguments, which he supported with great ingenuity.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I really cannot be plaguing myself for ever with all the new poems and states of the nation that come out.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Hush! You remember those lines—I forget the poem at this moment: Now I say, my dear, in our case, for lady, read—mum! a word to the wise.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

But Iceland’s most celebrated medieval poem, Vǫluspá (‘The prophecy of the seeress’) does appear to give an impression of what the eruption was like.

(Volcanic eruption influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity, University of Cambridge)

Repetition can be useful if you're trying to memorize a poem, master a guitar riff, or just cultivate good habits.

(Research on repetitive worm behavior has implications for understanding human diseases, National Science Foundation)

I have brought you a book for evening solace, and he laid on the table a new publication—a poem: one of those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days—the golden age of modern literature.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

They were simple poems, of light and color, and romance and adventure.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“And it was a newspaper poem,” she said glibly.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)