limerick

n. [ Said to be from a song with the same verse construction, current in Ireland, the refrain of which contains the place name Limerick. ] A humorous, often nonsensical, and sometimes risqé poem of five anapestic lines, of which lines 1, 2, and 5 are of three feet, and rhyme, and lines 3 and 4 are of two feet, and rhyme. It often begins with "There once was a . . ." or "There was a . . ."; as -- There was a young lady, Amanda,
Whose Ballades Lyriques were quite fin de
Siècle, I deem
But her Journal Intime
Was what sent her papa to Uganda.
[ Webster 1913 Suppl. +PJC ]