Tetrapody

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A line of verse composed of four metrical feet
2. A verse unit made up of four consecutive metrical feet
3. Poetic meter arranged in four feet per line

Etymology: "Tetrapody" is a compound built from two Ancient Greek elements: "tetra-", meaning "four", and "-pody", from "pous" (genitive "podos"), meaning "foot". Put together, the word describes the quality of having four feet, and it is the same "foot" that turns up in "podium", "octopus" and "pedal". The formation follows a familiar pattern in scientific and technical vocabulary, where classical Greek roots were combined to name a concept precisely. Writers using "tetrapody" in this sense are describing a body plan rather than a single animal, so the word works as a general category term, the kind of label a zoologist or palaeontologist might use when grouping animals that share a four-limbed structure.