What is a Limerick?

A Limerick is a form of poetry.

[n] a humorous verse form of 5 anapestic lines with a rhyme scheme aabba
[n] port city in southwestern Ireland

A limerick is a five-line, often humorous and ribald poem with a strict meter. Lines 1, 2, and 5 of have seven to ten syllables (three metrical feet) and rhyme with one another. Lines 3 and 4 have five to seven (two metrical feet) syllables and also rhyme with each other. The rhyme scheme is usually "A-A-B-B-A".

Example

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket.
      But his daughter, named Nan,
      Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

See Also....

city, Eire, Ireland, Irish Free State, metropolis, port, rhyme, urban center, verse

Related Terms

alba, anacreontic, balada, ballad, ballade, bucolic, canso, chanson, clerihew, dirge, dithyramb, eclogue, elegy, English sonnet, epic, epigram, epithalamium, epode, epopee, epopoeia, epos, georgic, ghazel, haiku, Horatian ode, idyll, Italian sonnet, jingl