ottava rima: Meaning and Definition of

ot•ta•va ri•ma

Pronunciation: (ō-tä'vu rē'mu), [key]
— pl. ot•ta•va ri•mas.
  1. an Italian stanza of eight lines, each of eleven syllables (or, in the English adaptation, of ten or eleven syllables), the first six lines rhyming alternately and the last two forming a couplet with a different rhyme: used in Keats' Isabella and Byron's Don Juan.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.