alexandrine

A 12-syllable line of verse known to date from the 12th century, and used for almost all French poetry from the 16th century. It has been variously divided into two groups of six syllables (usually in English poetry) or three groups of four syllables (usually in French poetry).

The name alexandrine seems to have been derived from a 12th-century French poem about Alexander the Great, written in this metre. It is used in English as the concluding line of the Spenserian stanza, and also as a variant in poems written in the ten-syllabled heroic couplet.