arsis

English

Etymology

Ancient Greek ἄρσις (ársis, “lifting”), from αἴρω (aírō, “I lift”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɑː(ɹ)sɪs/

Noun

arsis (countable and uncountable, plural arses)

1. (music) The stronger part of a musical measure: the part containing the beat.
2. (poetry) The stronger part of a metrical foot: the part containing the long (heavy) syllable in quantitative meter, or the stressed syllable in a qualitative meter.
   • 1830, Johann Gottfried Jacob Hermann, Hermann's Elements of the Doctrine of Metres:

     it comes to pass that the arsis may effect some change in the order of which it is itself the commencement

3. (music) The elevation of the hand, or that part of the bar at which it is raised, in beating time; the weak or unaccented part of the bar, opposed to the thesis.
4. The elevation of the voice to a higher pitch in speaking.

Derived terms

• arsic

Translations

References

Anagrams

• Sarsi, saris, siras

French

Noun

arsis m (plural arsis)

1. arsis

Further reading

• “arsis”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Latin

Participle

arsīs

1. dative/ablative masculine/feminine/neuter plural of arsus

References

• “arsis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• arsis in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)