'antibacchius' originates from Neo-Latin, specifically from the Greek prefix 'anti-' (from Greek 'anti-') combined with 'bacchius' (from Latin/Greek 'Bacchus'/'Bakkhos'), where 'anti-' meant 'against' or 'opposite' and 'bacchius' refers to a named metrical foot.

'antibacchius' changed from Medieval/Neo-Latin technical usage in grammatical and prosodic treatises (Latin 'antibacchius') and was adopted into English technical poetry and prosody vocabulary by scholars and critics in the 17th–19th centuries.

Initially described as the 'opposite of bacchius' in technical prosody, it came to be used concretely to denote the specific foot of two long (or stressed) syllables followed by one short (or unstressed) syllable (– – u).