An anapaest (/ˈænəpiːst, -pɛst/; also spelled anapæst or anapest, also called antidactylus) is a metrical foot used in formal poetry.
This word comes from the Greek ἀνάπαιστος, anápaistos, literally "struck back" and in a poetic context "a dactyl reversed".
[1][2][3][4] Because of its length and the fact that it ends with a stressed syllable and so allows for strong rhymes, anapaest can produce a very rolling verse, and allows for long lines with a great deal of internal complexity.
The mixture of anapaests and iambs in this manner is most characteristic of late-19th-century verse, particularly that of Algernon Charles Swinburne in poems such as The Triumph of Time (1866) and the choruses from Atalanta in Calydon (1865).
Neutral Milk Hotel's song "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" can be described as mainly being written in anapaestic heptameter, or two dimetric lines followed by a trimetric one.