One of the four most important Classic lyric one line metres (the others being the asclepiad metres, the hendecasyllabic metre and the pherecratic metre). While the dactylic poetry (epic, boucolic etc.) and the iambic and trochaic poetry (dramatic etc.) use feet arranged by certain orders and quantities, the lyric metres pertain to complete lines. A stanza doesn't need to be constituted of a single metric element (except for the Alcaic and the Sapphic Stanzas), but could interchange them and even occasionally add "feet-metre" lines and couplets (particularly the 'Elegiac Couplet'). The normal lyric stanza has four lines.

Though the glyconic appears by itself in Catullus, it regularly appears in combinations with the lesser asclepiad or the pherecratic. It consists of eight syllables, and in fact is identical to the lesser asclepiad minus the choriambus (^--^) in the middle. The glyconic has no regular caesura.

The pattern of the glyconic is therefore:

 - - - ^ ^ - ^ -

* - long or stressed syllable; ^ short or unstressed syllable.

Example (in Latin):

  - -    - ^  ^ -   ^ -
 donec gratus eram tibi

(Horatius, Od. III, 9, 1)