[1] The metre comprises paired hemistichs of the following form (where "–" represents a long syllable, "u" a short syllable, and "uu" one long or two shorts):[2] Thus, unlike most classical Arabic metres, wāfir allows the poet to substitute one long syllable for two shorts, an example of the prosodic element known as a biceps.
Thus allows wāfir lines to have different numbers of syllables from each other, a characteristic otherwise only found in kāmil, mutadārik and some forms of basīṭ.
[4] In the analysis of Salma K. Jayyusi, the Umayyad poet Jarir ibn Atiyah used the metre for about a fifth of his work, and at that time "this metre was still fresh and did not carry echoes of great pre-Islamic poets as did ṭawīl and baṣīt.
Wāfir had therefore a great potential for introducing a diction nearer to the spoken language of the Umayyad period.
[7] In the Arabic and Arabic-influenced vernacular poetry of Sub-Saharan Africa it also features,[8] for example in Fula[9] and Hausa.