Feminine ending

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The term feminine ending has several meanings, depending on context.

In prosody, it refers to a line of verse that ends with an unstressed syllable. Usually it is contrasted with other lines that end in a stress – a masculine ending. See iambic pentameter.

In music, the term is used in a similar fashion, when a phrase or movement ends in an unstressed note or weak cadence, often midway through a bar.

Feminine Endings (1991, ISBN 0-8166-4189-7) is a book by the musicologist Susan McClary. She claimed it was the first explicitly feminist critique of Western music, especially in the disciplines of musicology and music theory.

In grammar, the term refers to the final syllable or suffixed letters that mark words in the feminine gender.