Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Crudely or irregularly fashioned verse, often of a humorous or burlesque nature.
from The Century Dictionary.
- An epithet originally given to a kind of loose, irregular measure in burlesque poetry, like that of “Hudibras,” but now more generally applied to mean verses defective alike in sense and in rhythm.
- noun Burlesque poetry, generally in irregular measure.
- noun Mean, paltry verses, defective in sense and in rhythm.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Low in style, and irregular in measure.
- noun A sort of loose or irregular verse; mean or undignified poetry.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective poetry Of a
crude orirregular construction . (Originally applied tohumorous verse , but now to verse lackingartistry ormeaning .) - adjective poetry a
comic orhumorous verse, usually irregular in measure - noun A doggerel poem or verse.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a comic verse of irregular measure
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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If this is not done, as in what we call doggerel rhyme, an effect of grotesque is universally produced, to the ruin of serious poetic effect.
The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) George Saintsbury 1889
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But, fortunately, there's a med (gabapentin), and there's physical therapy, which combined have delivered me to Level 5, where I write from now and where the pain, pardon the doggerel, is more reminding than blinding.
Carla Seaquist: A Trek Through Cancer Carla Seaquist 2010
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He turned his attention to abuses in Church and State, which he lashed with caustic satire, conveyed in short doggerel rhyming lines peculiar to himself, in which jokes, slang, invectives, and Latin quotations rush out pell-mell.
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Her comment upon this, in French doggerel, is illuminating.
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It seems an appropriate time (if there is one) to share this bit of doggerel from a short story by William Sanders:
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Her comment upon this, in French doggerel, is illuminating.
The Concealed Fansyes: A Play by Lady Jane Cavendish and Lady Elizabeth Brackley Jane Cheyne 1644
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The Mask of Anarchy) in doggerel verse-satire based on popular religious symbols.
Historical Contexts 1997
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You get daily stints on network radio if you knocked off the doggerel, which is below cute, we'd be grateful.
John Joss: Help Me Understand... John Joss 2012
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This poem is in the style of “Hudibras,” called doggerel rhyme, which is the stilo Berniesco of the Italians.
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Neither in his sonnets, nor in his various stanzas composed of heroics, nor in what may be called his doggerel metres -- the fatally fluent Alexandrines, fourteeners, and admixtures of both, which dominated English poetry from his time to Spenser's, and were never quite rejected during the Elizabethan period -- do we find evidence of the want of ear, or the want of command of language, which makes Wyatt's versification frequently disgusting.
A History of Elizabethan Literature George Saintsbury 1889
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People use different forms of speech when speaking to infants and dogs, called "Motherese" and "Doggerel."
Dogs' Brains Are Better Tuned to Female Voices and Baby Talk Stanley Coren, Ph.D., FRSC., is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. 2023
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