FEMININE ENDING

in prosody, a line of verse having an unstressed and usually extrametrical syllable at its end. In the opening lines from Robert Frost's poem Directive, the fourth line has a feminine ending while the rest are masculine: Back out of all this now too much for us, Back in a time made simple by the loss Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather, There is a house that is no more a house Upon a farm that is no more a farm And in a town that is no more a town.