The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Trimeter

Trimeter: A line of verse consisting of three metrical feet.

EXAMPLE: The hymn “Amazing Grace” (1779), written by John Newton, in which iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter lines alternate throughout:

Amaz│ing grace!│(how sweet│the sound)

That sav’d│a wretch│like me! …

The opening lines, written in trochaic trimeter, of Robert Browning’s “Home Thoughts, from Abroad” (1845):

Oh to│be in│England

Now that│April’s│there… .