History of the term (anacrusis)

The term “anakrousis” was used by the ancient Greeks for metrical poetry in cases where the first syllable of a poem (or the first few syllables) was not accented. The word combines two Greek words: ana- “back” and krouein “to strike.” For the Greeks, starting a poem that way felt like pushing or “striking” a ship back from the dock on the start of a voyage (they spent a lot of time on boats, what with all those islands!). Later the word was respelled in Latin as anacrusis, and musicians applied the poetic term to music.