Also 7 cop-, cup-, (? caplet). [a. F. couplet (1364 in Godefroy) two pieces of iron riveted or hinged together, succession of verses rhyming together, stanza, etc., dim. of couple.]
1. A pair of successive lines of verse, esp. when rhyming together and of the same length.
1590. Sidney, Arcadia, 86 (J.). In singing some short coplets, whereto the one halfe beginning, the other halfe should answere.
a. 1649. Drumm. of Hawth., Conv. w. Jonson, Wks. (1711), 225. It is all in couplets, for he detested all other rhimes.
1780. Johnson, L. P., Congreve, Wks. III. 171. Except what relates to the stage, I know not that he has ever written a stanza that is sung, or a couplet that is quoted.
1866. Rogers, Agric. & Prices, I. xxiv. 615. A popular notion, embodied in a rhyming couplet.
1889. Skeat, Chaucer’s L. G. W., Introd. 33. He introduces a new metre … now famous as ‘the heroic couplet.’
2. gen. A pair or couple; in pl. = twins (quot. 1824, nonce-use: cf. triplets).
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., III. iv. 412. Weel whisper ore a couplet or two of most sage sawes. Ibid. (1602), Ham., V. i. 310. As patient as the female Doue, When that her golden Cuplet [Qq. couplets] are disclos’d.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 161. Their very nurse, as she used to boast, could hardly tell her pretty ‘couplets’ apart.
3. Arch. A window of two lights.
1844. Ecclesiologist, III. 149. The church is lighted with four couplets and a half on each side.
1879. Sir G. G. Scott, Lect. Archit., I. 251. The couplets, triplets, and more numerous groups of the Early English windows.
4. Music. Two equal notes inserted in a passage of triple rhythm and made to occupy the time of three.
1876. in Stainer & Barrett, Dict. Mus. Terms.
† 5. A coupling, link or chain. Obs. rare–1.
1601. ? Marston, Pasquil & Kath., III. 105. Being chain’d by the mightie coplet of ineuitable destiny.
6. attrib. and comb., as couplet-chiming, couplet verse (sense 1); † couplet-harness, mail.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., XXV. iii. 264. A couple of Parthyans in couplet-harneis [L. cataphractorum].
1666. Dryden, Ann. Mirab., Pref. Wks. (Globe), 38. In this necessity of our rhymes, I have always found the couplet verse most easy.
1797–1802. G. Colman, Br. Grins, Lament. viii. ’Twere strange if they [dead poets] should rise, and go afresh to couplet-chiming.
