The opposite of resolution is contraction, which is the substitution of one long syllable where the metrical pattern has a double short.
It should not be confused with a biceps, which is a point in a meter which can equally be two shorts or a long, as is found in the dactylic hexameter.
One example from iambic trimeter: Here the resolved pair is the word ὄνομ', so the resolution stays within the same word-unit.
In comedy there is no restriction on the number of resolutions that can occur in a line; there can even be two in the same foot, e.g. ego fateor or quia tibi and so on.
This rule does not apply so strictly in Greek, where a tribrach-shaped word like ἄδικον can sometimes occur with the second and third syllable in a single element.
Wherever there is resolution in Roman comedy (but not in later Latin), it is often possible also to find a phenomenon called "iambic shortening" or brevis brevians, whereby the second syllable of a resolved pair counts as short even though it is theoretically long, e.g. recēns nātum (with short -cēns) or volō scīre (with shortened -lo).
In the alliterative verse tradition of the ancient and medieval Germanic languages, resolution was also an important feature.
From there, upwards, swiftly the people of the Weders stepped onto land, tied up sea-wood; they shook their mail-coats, battle-raiment.
When resolution occurs in a weak position in the line, there are two light unstressed syllables between the stressed ones, often within a polysyllabic word, as in the following examples from Shakespeare:[11] A resolved weak position can also be a pair of light unstressed non-lexical words: Occasionally, however, a strong position can be resolved into a strong and weak syllable, provided that the strong syllable is a light one, as in the word many below: Resolution is also found in modern English verse, for example in the nursery rhyme: Here the rhythm consists of four trochaic feet, the last one catalectic (i.e. missing the final syllable).