sextain

(ˈsɛksteɪn)

(Poetry) another word for sestina

[C17: from obsolete French sestine sestina, but also influenced by obsolete sixain stanza of six lines]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

sex•tain

(ˈsɛk steɪn)

n.

1. a stanza of six lines.

2. sestina.

[1630–40;b. two obsolete French words: sixain six-line stanza and sestine sestina]

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References in periodicals archive ?

If so, here is one which may serve: it is a revision of an existing RETEP quatrain of mine to which a new couplet has been added (the central one, of course) to make it a sextain. (Nap in the sixth line is a "chiefly dialectical" variant of "nape.")

SIX-LINE RETEP VERSE

Nonetheless, the apercu lingers of Gosse, attending Browning's funeral in Westminster Abbey, taking repeated furtive looks at a homoerotic photograph of a beautiful lad sent to him by Symonds, and composing an apt sextain in his mind, and raises uncomfortable doubts.

The vanishing man of letters

Stanzas are defined according to the number of lines they contain as in the terms couplet; triplet or tercet; quatrain; quintet or cinquain; sestet, sextet, or sextain; septet; octave or octet.