In poetry, what is a foot?

• A. Meter
• B. Foot
• C. Rhyme
• D. Accent

Answer: (B)

Foot is the basic unit of meter in poetry, a small group of syllables laid out in a particular pattern of stress. It’s the building block that repeats to give a line its rhythmic shape. For example, an iamb—an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, as in be-Cause—is a common type of foot. When a poem uses five of these feet per line, it’s called iambic pentameter. This concept differs from meter itself (the overall pattern of feet in a line), rhyme (the ending sounds of words), and accent (the emphasis on a single syllable).