Mētrŭm
Latin verse scansion — for your pocket.
Type a line of Latin and watch it scan: long and short syllables, feet, elision, and caesura, for hexameter, pentameter, and the elegiac couplet. Fully offline.
Coming soon to the App Store.
What it does
Mētrŭm scans Latin verse the way classical prosody asks of it. Type or paste a line and it walks the verse, weighs each syllable long against short, finds the feet, marks elision, and surfaces the caesura — then tells you how the line scans against the metre.
It handles dactylic hexameter, pentameter, and the elegiac couplet (a hexameter followed by a pentameter) — the metres of Vergil, Ovid, Lucretius, Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius. Choose a metre, or let Mētrŭm auto-detect it.
Grounded in a dictionary, not just the metre
Most tools assume the metre and read the syllable lengths back from it. Mētrŭm works the other way round: it resolves each vowel's length from its built-in Latin dictionary, from diphthongs, and from syllable position first, then marks anything it could only deduce from the metre. Every line carries a metre-fit label and a clear split between established and inferred quantities — so you can see exactly what the reading rests on.
What you see
- Long and short marks set directly on each vowel
- Feet, caesura, and elision marked in the line
- A compact legend: long · short · foot · caesura · elision
- Your original spelling, capitalisation, and punctuation preserved — nothing invented
- A "How did it scan this?" explanation for every line
- A curated set of demo verses to explore
Works offline, collects nothing
The whole app runs on your device. No account, no sign-up, no network round-trip in normal use, no analytics, no tracking. Nothing you type leaves your device.
Nine languages
The interface is available in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese.
A long story
Mētrŭm descends from a program its author wrote in 1980, at age fifteen, in BASIC on a TRS-80 — a project that won first prize in a programming contest. Four decades later it is a modern app for the phone in your pocket.
Support
Need help, found a verse that scans oddly, or have a suggestion?
Email erik@evrard.net and we'll get back to you.
When reporting a scansion problem, it helps to include:
- the exact line you entered,
- the metre you expected (or "auto-detect"),
- and what you think the correct scansion should be.
Frequently asked
Does Mētrŭm need an internet connection?
No. It runs entirely on your device and works fully offline.
Does it collect any data?
No. There is no account, no tracking, and no analytics. Nothing you type leaves your device. See the privacy policy.
Which metres are supported?
Dactylic hexameter, pentameter, and the elegiac couplet.
A line scanned in a way I didn't expect — is that a bug?
Sometimes a vowel length can only be inferred from the metre rather than confirmed from the dictionary; Mētrŭm labels which is which. If you think a reading is wrong, email us with the line and your expected scansion.