Metrical means having a regular, rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, like the steady beat you hear in poetry and songs. When something is metrical, it follows a predictable rhythm that you can tap your foot to or clap along with.

Think of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”: MAR-y HAD a LIT-tle LAMB, its FLEECE was WHITE as SNOW. The capital letters show the stressed beats, and they come at regular intervals. That's metrical poetry.

Not all poetry is metrical. Some modern poems use free verse, which means they don't follow a regular beat. But for thousands of years, poets wrote metrically because the rhythm made their words easier to remember and more powerful to hear. When ancient Greeks recited The Odyssey or when Shakespeare wrote his plays, they used metrical language that audiences could feel in their bones.

When you write a limerick or read Dr. Seuss, you're experiencing metrical language: the words march along in a pattern that makes them fun to say out loud and satisfying to hear.