[a. Fr. alexandrin, the exact origin of which is disputed, some deriving it, according to Ménage, from the name of Alexandre Paris, an old French poet who used this verse, others from the fact that several poems on Alexander the Great were written in it by early poets (one by the said Alexandre Paris): see Littré.]
A. adj. Applied to a line of six feet or twelve syllables, which is the French heroic verse, and in English is used to vary the heroic verse of five feet.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie (1869), 86. This meeter of twelue sillables the French man calleth a verse Alexandrine.
1756–82. J. Warton, Ess. Pope, I. 199 (T.). The harmony of his numbers, as far as Alexandrine lines will admit.
B. sb. An Alexandrine line or verse.
1667. Dryden, Ann. Mirab., Pref. They write in Alexandrins or verses of six feet.
1709. Pope, Crit., 359. A needless Alexandrine ends the song That like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
1860. All Y. Round, No. 67, 392. Says Spenser, in one of his fine, drowsy, murmuring alexandrines.
