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InGreek andLatin poetry, achoriamb/ˈkɔːriˌæmb/ (Ancient Greek: χορίαμβος -khoriambos) is ametron (prosodic foot) consisting of foursyllables in the pattern long-short-short-long (—^{‿ ‿} —), that is, atrochee alternating with aniamb. Choriambs are one of the two basic metra^[1] that do not occur in spoken verse, as distinguished from true lyric or sung verse.^[2] The choriamb is sometimes regarded as the "nucleus" ofAeolic verse, because the pattern long-short-short-long pattern occurs, but to label this a "choriamb" is potentially misleading.^[3]

In the prosody ofEnglish and other modern European languages, "choriamb" is sometimes used to describe four-syllable sequence of the pattern stressed-unstressed-unstressed-stressed (again, a trochee followed by an iamb): for example, "over the hill", "under the bridge", and "what a mistake!".

In English, the choriamb is often found in the first four syllables of iambic pentameter verses, as here inKeats'To Autumn:

Who hath notseen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on agranaryfloor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by thewinnowingwind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with thefume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the nextswath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thyladen head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

• meter (poetry)
• Aeolic verse

• Gosse, Edmund William (1911)."Choriambic Verse" . InChisholm, Hugh (ed.).Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 269.

• Metrical feet

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