clerihew

noun

cler·​i·​hew ˈkler-i-ˌhyü 

ˈkle-ri-

: a light verse quatrain rhyming aabb and usually dealing with a person named in the initial rhyme

Did you know?

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) was an English writer whose book Biography for Beginners was published in 1906 under the name E. Clerihew. It was a collection of simple, humorous four-line verses about famous people. Bentley had begun writing them as a bored high school student. He didn't call them clerihews himself, but his readers began to do so after the book appeared. How soon after, we can't be sure, because so far we've unearthed nothing earlier than a 1914 description of clerihews as "epigram[s] in hartogs, which are, of course, one’s oldest and most comfortable clothes." In any case, people have been having fun writing their own clerihews ever since Bentley shared his.

Examples of clerihew in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Edited by Dava Sobel NOTE: A clerihew is a four-line poetic format invented in 1905 by Edmund Clerihew Bentley, who wrote humorous rhymes about all manner of persons, making frivolous fun of their names. —Melissa Dehner, Scientific American, 26 Mar. 2021

Easy to write and fun to read, entrants were asked to write a clerihew that describes a famous scientist or other person, or event closely associated with fire. —William Gurstelle, WIRED, 16 Aug. 2011

Word History

Etymology

Edmund Clerihew Bentley †1956 English writer

First Known Use

1928, in the meaning defined above

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