Is there a term for the words whose stress is on the first syllable?

I know that oxytone, paroxytone, and proparoxytone mean that its stress is on the last, penultimate, and antepenultimate syllable, respectively. Does a term for those having it on the first exist? Thanks.


The term you're looking for is prototonic, meaning a word accented on the first syllable. Additionally, there is the term deuterotonic, which indicates an accent on the second syllable.

Mitch's answer describes terminology from poetic meter rather than technical linguistic terms. For anyone looking for terms in that regard, his information is correct.


A two-syllable word with the stress on the first syllable is called a

trochee.

Words like 'double', 'parent', and 'major' are trochees. There are a lot more examples in this xkcd comic.

This is in distinction to an iamb, with the stress on the second syllable, for example: 'police', 'manure', 'alive'.

'Trochee' isn't exactly what you're looking for since it describes only two syllable words, and you're looking for a word with any number of syllables where the accent is on the first. (anapest is for three syllable words.) Also, these terms are mostly used for poetic meter, irrespective of word boundaries, but they still are often applied to standalone words.

One would expect, by analogy with the Greek system, that

prototone

would be the word (proto- = first) but is not listed in the OED. It is sometimes used though:

It is generally agreed ... that preclassical Latin was prototone: stress the initial syllable.