Tercet
Poetry & prosodyA three-line stanza — the sonnet's closing unit and, chained as terza rima, Dante's vehicle.
Example
Dante's terza rima: ABA BCB CDC… — the middle rhyme begets the next stanza.
The tercet is a three-line stanza. Its odd number gives it a particular dynamic: where the quatrain balances, the tercet leans — calling for a continuation or precipitating an end. That's why it occupies the sonnet's second half in the French tradition: after the setting quatrains, the two tercets pivot and conclude.
Chained in braided rhymes (ABA BCB CDC…), it becomes terza rima, Dante's invention for the Divine Comedy: each tercet contains the seed of the next, and the poem advances like a chain with no possible end — a single line is needed to stop it. As an autonomous brief form, the tercet is also the haiku's Western costume.
Put this term to work
The writing studio novelists were missing
Outline, characters, places and objects, the links between them, mind map, scene board, export: everything lives in one place. Plus an AI that knows your story, whenever you want one.
Free to write and to export. No credit card asked.