Spondee

The spondee is a conventional disyllabic foot of two stressed syllables (——). In ancient quantitative metrics the spondee was a full foot of two long syllables; in accentual syllabo-tonic verse it functions as a deviation from the iamb or trochee — a "weighting" of the line with an additional, extra-schematic stress where the metre calls for a weak position. The spondee slows the movement of the verse, lending it heft, solemnity or tension, and is therefore used deliberately on semantically emphasised words. Together with the pyrrhic, the spondee belongs to the principal rhythmic modifications of disyllabic measures and is an important means of expressive scansion.