Doggerel is an adjective or noun describing verse that is comic, burlesque, or crude and irregular in measure.
Doggerel es un adjetivo o sustantivo que describe un verso cómico, burlesco, o pobre y de medida irregular.
| Back | doggerel \DAW-ger-uhl, DOG-er-\ |
|---|---|
| Front | adjective Of verse a. Comic or burlesque, and usually loose or irregular in measure. b. Rude; crude; poor. noun Doggerel verse. [Doggerel is likely a blend of dog and the pejorative suffix -rel. It came to English in the 1400s as a way to insult bad poetry by implying that it could have been created by dogs, or could have only been enjoyed by dogs.] Whoever wrote that doggerel had picked up the Virginia gossip about Jefferson having a black "wife," but Callender assumed the dialect poet had only a suspicion. -- William Safire, Scandalmonger, 2000 I found myself in a house of kindly people, who had found me on the third day wandering, weeping, and raving through the streets of St. John's Wood. They have told me since that I was singing some insane doggerel about “The Last Man Left Alive! Hurrah! The Last Man Left Alive!" - H. G. Wells, War of the Worlds, 1898 |
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