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This article is about the property of words. For the mobile phone, see HTC Rhyme. For the surname, see Rhymes (surname).

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words, most often in the final syllables of lines in poems and songs.[1] The word "rhyme" may also be used as a pars pro toto ("a part (taken) for the whole") to refer a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.

Function of rhyme[edit]

Rhyme partly seems to be enjoyed simply as a repeating pattern that is pleasant to hear. It also serves as a powerful mnemonic device, facilitating memorization. The regular use of tail rhyme helps to mark off the ends of lines, thus clarifying the metrical structure for the listener. As with other poetic techniques, poets use it to suit their own purposes; for example William Shakespeare often used a rhyming couplet to mark off the end of a scene in a play.

Types of rhyme[edit]

The word rhyme can be used in a specific and a general sense. In the specific sense, two words rhyme if their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical; two lines of poetry rhyme if their final strong positions are filled with rhyming words. A rhyme in the strict sense is also called a perfect rhyme. Examples are sight and flight, deign and gain, madness and sadness.

Perfect rhymes[edit]

Main article: Perfect rhyme

Perfect rhymes can be classified according to the number of syllables included in the rhyme, which is dictated by the location of the final stressed syllable.

  • masculine: a rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words (rhyme, sublime)
  • feminine: a rhyme in which the stress is on the penultimate (second from last) syllable of the words (picky, tricky)
  • dactylic: a rhyme in which the stress is on the antepenultimate (third from last) syllable (cacophonies, Aristophanes)

General rhymes[edit]


  • syllabic: a rhyme in which the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not necessarily contain stressed vowels. (cleaver, silver, or pitter, patter; the final syllable of the words bottle and fiddle are /l/, a liquid consonant.)
  • imperfect (or near): a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. (wing, caring)
  • weak (or unaccented): a rhyme between two sets of one or more unstressed syllables. (hammer, carpenter)
  • forced (or oblique): a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. (green, fiend; one, thumb)
  • assonance: matching vowels. (shake, hate) Assonance is sometimes referred to as slant rhymes, along with consonance.
  • consonance: matching consonants. (rabies, robbers)
  • half rhyme (or slant rhyme): matching final consonants. (bent, ant)
  • pararhyme: all consonants match. (tell, tall)
  • alliteration (or head rhyme): matching initial consonants. (ship, short)

Identical rhymes[edit]

Identical rhymes are considered less than perfect in English poetry; but are valued more highly in other literatures such as, for example, rime riche in French poetry.

Though homophones and homonyms satisfy the first condition for rhyming—that is, that the stressed vowel sound is the same—they do not satisfy the second: that the preceding consonant be different. As stated above, in a perfect rhyme the last stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical in both words.

If the sound preceding the stressed vowel is also identical, the rhyme is sometimes considered to be inferior and not a perfect rhyme after all.[2][3] An example of such a "super-rhyme" or "more than perfect rhyme" is the "identical rhyme", in which not only the vowels but also the onsets of the rhyming syllables are identical, as in gun and begun. Punning rhymes such are "bare" and "bear" are also identical rhymes. The rhyme may extend even farther back than the last stressed vowel. If it extends all the way to the beginning of the line, so that there are two lines that sound identical, then it is called a "holorhyme" ("For I scream/For ice cream").

In poetics these would be considered identity, rather than rhyme.

Eye rhyme[edit]

Main article: Eye rhyme

Eye rhymes or sight rhymes or spelling rhymes refer to similarity in spelling but not in sound where the final sounds are spelled identically but pronounced differently.[4] Examples in English are cough, bough, and love, move.

Some early written poetry appears to contain these, but in many cases the words used rhymed at the time of writing, and subsequent changes in pronunciation have meant that the rhyme is now lost.

Mind rhyme[edit]

Main article: Mind rhyme

Mind rhyme is a kind of substitution rhyme similar to rhyming slang, but it is less generally codified and is “heard” only when generated by a specific verse context. For instance, “this sugar is neat / and tastes so sour.” If a reader or listener thinks of the word “sweet” instead of “sour”, then a mind rhyme has occurred.

Classification by position[edit]

Rhymes may be classified according to their position in the verse:

  • Off-centered rhyme is a type of internal rhyme occurring in unexpected places in a given line. This is sometimes called a misplaced-rhyme scheme or a spoken word rhyme style.
  • Holorime, mentioned above, occurs when two entire lines have the same sound.
  • Broken rhyme is a type of enjambement producing a rhyme by dividing a word at the line break of a poem to make a rhyme with the end word of another line.
  • Cross rhyme matches a sound or sounds at the end of a line with the same sound or sounds in the middle of the following (or preceding) line.[4]



In many languages, including modern European languages and Arabic, poets use rhyme in set patterns as a structural element for specific poetic forms, such as ballads, sonnets and rhyming couplets. Some rhyming schemes have become associated with a specific language, culture or period, while other rhyming schemes have achieved use across languages, cultures or time periods. However, the use of structural rhyme is not universal even within the European tradition. Much modern poetry avoids traditional rhyme schemes.

The earliest surviving evidence of rhyming is the Chinese Shi Jing (ca. 10th century BC). Rhyme is also occasionally used in the Bible.[5] Overwhelmingly, Classical Greek and Latin poetry did not use rhyme.[6] But rhyme is used very occasionally. For instance, Catullus includes partial rhymes in the poem Cui dono lepidum novum libellum.[7] The ancient Greeks knew rhyme, and rhymes in The Wasps by Aristophanes are noted by a translator.[8]

According to some archaic sources, Irish literature introduced the rhyme to Early Medieval Europe, though this is a disputed claim;[9] in the 7th century we find the Irish had brought the art of rhyming verses to a high pitch of perfection. Also in the 7th Century, rhyme was used in the Qur'an. The leonine verse is notable for introducing rhyme into High Medieval literature in the 12th century.

Rhyme entered European poetry in the High Middle Ages, in part under the influence of the Arabic language in Al Andalus (modern Spain).[10] Arabic language poets used rhyme extensively from the first development of literary Arabic in the sixth century, as in their long, rhyming qasidas.[11]

Since languages change over time, lines which rhymed in the past may no longer rhyme in today's language and it may not be clear how one would pronounce the words so that they rhyme. For example:

Rejoice, O Judah, and in songs divine
With cherubim and seraphim harmonious join.
from Handel's Judas Maccabaeus (libretto by Thomas Morell)

"Should we really sing 'harmonious jine' [or 'songs divoin']?"[12]


The word is derived from Old French rime or ryme, which may be derived from Old Frankish *rīm, a Germanic term meaning "series, sequence" attested in Old English (Old English rīm meaning "enumeration, series, numeral") and Old High German rīm, ultimately cognate to Old Irish rím, Greek ἀριθμός arithmos "number". Alternatively, the Old French words may derive from Latin rhythmus, from Greek ῥυθμός (rhythmos, rhythm).[13][14]

The spelling rhyme (from original rime) was introduced at the beginning of the Modern English period, due to a learned (but perhaps etymologically incorrect) association with Latin rhythmus.[13] The older spelling rime survives in Modern English as a rare alternative spelling. A distinction between the spellings is also sometimes made in the study of linguistics and phonology, where rime/rhyme is used to refer to the nucleus and coda of a syllable. In this context, some prefer to spell this rime to separate it from the poetic rhyme covered by this article (see syllable rime).

Rhyme in various languages[edit]


Some sura (chapters) of the Qur’an are written in saj‘, a prose genre that uses end rhymes. This particular style was widespread in the Arabic peninsula during the time of the Qur’an's appearance.

Celtic languages[edit]

For Welsh, see cynghanedd

Rhyming in the Celtic Languages takes a drastically different course from most other Western rhyming schemes despite strong contact with the Romance and English patterns. Even today, despite extensive interaction with English and French culture, Celtic rhyme continues to demonstrate native characteristics. Brian Ó Cuív sets out the rules of rhyme in Irish poetry of the classical period: the last stressed vowel and any subsequent long vowels must be identical in order for two words to rhyme. Consonants are grouped into six classes for the purpose of rhyme: they need not be identical, but must belong to the same class. Thus 'b' and 'd' can rhyme (both being 'voiced plosives'), as can 'bh' and 'l' (which are both 'voiced continuants') but 'l', a 'voiced continuant', cannot rhyme with 'ph', a 'voiceless continuant'. Furthermore, "for perfect rhyme a palatalized consonant may be balanced only by a palatalized consonant and a velarized consonant by a velarized one."[15] In the post-Classical period, these rules fell into desuetude, and in popular verse simple assonance often suffices, as can be seen in an example of Irish Gaelic rhyme from the traditional song Bríd Óg Ní Mháille:

Is a Bhríd Óg Ní Mháille / 'S tú d'fhág mo chroí cráite
[is ə vrʲiːdʲ oːɡ nʲiː wɒːlʲə / stuː dɒːɡ mə xriː krɒːtʲə]

Translation: Oh young Bridget O'Malley / You have left my heart breaking

Here the vowels are the same, but the consonants, although both palatalized, do not fall into the same class in the bardic rhyming scheme.


Further information: Rime dictionary

Besides the vowel/consonant aspect of rhyming, Chinese language rhymes often include tone quality (that is, tonal contour) as an integral linguistic factor in determining rhyme.

Use of rhyme in Classical Chinese poetry typically but not always appears in the form of paired couplets, with end-rhyming in the final syllable of each couplet.

Another important aspect of rhyme in regard to Chinese language studies is the study or reconstruction of past varieties of Chinese, such as Middle Chinese.


See English poetry


As English is a language in which stress is important, lexical stress is one of the factors affecting the similarity of sounds for the perception of rhyme. Perfect rhyme can be defined as the case when two words rhyme if their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical.[4]

Some words in English, such as "orange" and "silver", are commonly regarded as having no rhyme. Although a clever writer can get around this (for example, by obliquely rhyming "orange" with combinations of words like "door hinge" or with lesser-known words like "Blorenge" – a hill in Wales – or the surname Gorringe), it is generally easier to move the word out of rhyming position or replace it with a synonym ("orange" could become "amber")("Silver" could become a combination of "bright and argent").

One view of rhyme in English is from John Milton's preface to Paradise Lost:


A more tempered view is taken by W. H. Auden in The Dyer's Hand:


Forced or clumsy rhyme is often a key ingredient of doggerel.


In French poetry, unlike in English, it is common to have "identical rhymes", in which not only the vowels of the final syllables of the lines rhyme, but their onset consonants ("consonnes d'appui") as well. To the ear of someone accustomed to English verse, this often sounds like a very weak rhyme. For example, an English perfect rhyme of homophones, flour and flower, would seem weak, whereas a French rhyme of homophones doigt and doit is not only acceptable but quite common.

Rhymes are sometimes classified into the categories "rime pauvre" ("poor rhyme"), "rime suffisante" ("sufficient rhyme"), "rime riche" ("rich rhyme") and "rime richissime" ("very rich rhyme"), according to the number of rhyming sounds in the two words or in the parts of the two verses. For example to rhyme "parla" with "sauta" would be a poor rhyme (the words have only the vowel in common), to rhyme "pas" with "bras" a sufficient rhyme (with the vowel and the silent consonant in common), and "tante" with "attente" a rich rhyme (with the vowel, the onset consonant, and the coda consonant with its mute "e" in common). Authorities disagree, however, on exactly where to place the boundaries between the categories.

Holorime is an extreme example of rime richissime spanning an entire verse. Alphonse Allais was a notable exponent of holorime. Here is an example of a holorime couplet from Marc Monnier:

Gall, amant de la Reine, alla (tour magnanime)
Galamment de l'Arène à la Tour Magne, à Nîmes.
Gallus, the Queen's lover, went (a magnanimous gesture)
Gallantly from the Arena to the Great Tower, at Nîmes.

Classical French rhyme not only differs from English rhyme in its different treatment of onset consonants. It also treats coda consonants in a distinctive way.

French spelling includes several final letters that are no longer pronounced, and that in many cases have never been pronounced. Such final unpronounced letters continue to affect rhyme according to the rules of Classical French versification. They are encountered in almost all of the pre-20th-century French verse texts, but these rhyming rules are almost never taken into account from the 20th century.

The most important "silent" letter is the "mute e". In spoken French today, final "e" is, in some regional accents (in Paris for example), omitted after consonants; but in Classical French prosody, it was considered an integral part of the rhyme even when following the vowel. "Joue" could rhyme with "boue", but not with "trou". Rhyming words ending with this silent "e" were said to make up a "feminine rhyme", while words not ending with this silent "e" made up a "masculine rhyme". It was a principle of stanza-formation that masculine and feminine rhymes had to alternate in the stanza. All 17th-century French plays in verse alternate masculine and feminine alexandrine couplets.



In fact, only the "silent" final consonants which would be able to be pronounced the same way, if they were followed by a vowel, are able to rhyme together.


See Homoioteleuton rhyme


Ancient Hebrew verse generally did not employ rhyme. However, many Jewish liturgical poems rhyme today, because they were written in medieval Europe, where rhymes were in vogue.


In Latin rhetoric and poetry homeoteleuton and alliteration were frequently used devices.

Tail rhyme was occasionally used, as in this piece of poetry by Cicero:

O Fortunatam natam me consule Romam.
(O fortunate Rome, to be born with me consul)

But tail rhyme was not used as a prominent structural feature of Latin poetry until it was introduced under the influence of local vernacular traditions in the early Middle Ages. This is the Latin hymn Dies Irae:

Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sybilla
(The day of wrath, that day
which will reduce the world to ashes,
as foretold by David and the Sybil.)



Portuguese classifies rhymes in the following manner:

  • rima pobre (poor rhyme): rhyme between words of the same grammatical category (e.g. noun with noun) or between very common endings (-ão, -ar);
  • rima rica (rich rhyme): rhyme between words of different grammatical classes or with uncommon endings;
  • rima preciosa (precious rhyme): rhyme between words with a different morphology, for example estrela (star) with vê-la (to see her);
  • rima esdrúxula (odd rhyme): rhyme between proparoxytonic words (example: última, "last", and vítima, "victim").


Rhyme was introduced into Russian poetry in the 18th century. Folk poetry had generally been unrhymed, relying more on dactylic line endings for effect. Rhyme depends on a vowel and adjacent consonant (which may include the semivowel Short I). Vowel pairs rhyme - even though non-Russian speakers may not perceive them as the same sound. Consonant pairs rhyme if both are devoiced. Early 18th century poetry demanded perfect rhymes which were also grammatical rhymes, namely that noun endings rhymed with noun endings, verb endings with verb endings, and so on. Such rhymes relying on morphological endings become much rarer in modern Russian poetry, and greater use is made of approximate rhymes.[16]


Patterns of rich rhyme (prāsa) play a role in modern Sanskrit poetry, but only to a minor extent in historical Sanskrit texts. They are classified according to their position within the pada (metrical foot): ādiprāsa (first syllable), dvitīyākṣara prāsa (second syllable), antyaprāsa (final syllable) etc.


There are some unique rhyming schemes in Dravidian languages like Tamil. Specifically, the rhyme called etukai (anaphora) occurs on the second consonant of each line.

The other rhyme and related patterns are called nai (alliteration), toṭai (epiphora) and iraṭṭai kiḷavi (parallelism).

Some classical Tamil poetry forms, such as veṇpā, have rigid grammars for rhyme to the point that they could be expressed as a context-free grammar.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ "Rhyme". Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. 2013. 
  2. ^ [1], which cites Whitfield's University Rhyming Dictionary, 1951
  3. ^ [2]
  4. ^ a b c Stillman, Frances (1966). The Poet's Manual and Rhyming Dictionary. Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0500270309. 
  5. ^ "Old Testament survey: the message, form, and background of the Old Testament pg. 236"
  7. ^ http://www.prosentient.com.au/balnaves/johnbalnaves/dissch6c.asp
  8. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=WHmfT2s4mLgC&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=Aristophanes+wasps+rhyme&source=bl&ots=Re1e6MnWTd&sig=mczUaaeZwyOoemTUREZBuMHBemA&hl=en#v=onepage&q=Aristophanes%20wasps%20rhyme&f=false
  9. ^ "Article about early Irish literature by prof. Douglas Hyde in The Catholic Encyclopedia"
  12. ^ Kelly, Thomas Forest (2011). Early Music: A Very Short Introduction, p.83. ISBN 978-0-19-973076-6.
  13. ^ a b rhyme, n.. OED Online (Oxford University Press). March 2013. Retrieved 2013-04-15. 
  14. ^ Harper, Douglas (2000–2012). "Online Etymology Dictionary". Retrieved 2013-04-15. 
  15. ^ Ó Cuív, Brian (1967). 'The Phonetic Basis of Classical Modern Irish Rhyme'. Ériu 20, pp. 96-97
  16. ^ Wachtel, Michael (2006). The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780511206986. 

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