Pentameter
Template:Short description Pentameter (Template:Langx, 'measuring five (feet)') is a term describing the meter of a poem.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> A poem is said to be written in a particular pentameter when the lines of the poem have the length of five metrical feet.<ref name=":0" /> A metrical foot is, in classical poetry, a combination of two or more short or long syllables in a specific order; although this "does not provide an entirely reliable standard of measurement" in heavily accented Germanic languages such as English.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref> In these languages it is defined as a combination of one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables in a specific order.<ref name=":1" />
In English verse, pentameter has been the most common meter used ever since the 1500s; early examples include some of Geoffrey Chaucer's work in the 1300s.<ref name=":0" /> The most common foot is the iamb, resulting in iambic pentameter.<ref name=":0" /> Most English sonnets are written in iambic pentameter.<ref name=":0" /> It is also the meter used by Shakespeare in his blank-verse tragedies.<ref name=":0" />