Rhyme

Rhyme happens when two or more words share similar sounds, typically the same phonemes, starting from their final stressed syllable and continuing through any syllables that follow. This kind of matching—called perfect rhyme—is often deliberately used for musical or aesthetic effect, especially at the ends of lines in poems or songs. In a broader sense, rhyme can also describe other kinds of sound similarities near the ends of words. Additionally, the term "rhyme" is sometimes used as a shorthand for any short poem, like a nursery rhyme or a Balliol rhyme.

The word comes from Old French *rime* or *ryme*, which may trace back to Old Frankish *rīm*, a Germanic word meaning "series" or "sequence." This is related to Old English *rīm* ("enumeration," "series," or "numeral") and Old High German *rīm*, and is ultimately cognate with Old Irish *rím* and Ancient Greek *ἀριθμός* (arithmos, "number"). Alternatively, the Old French words might derive from Latin *rhythmus*, from Greek *ῥυθμός* (rhythmos, "rhythm"). The spelling "rhyme" (instead of the original "rime") appeared early in the Modern English period, based on a scholarly but likely incorrect link to Latin *rhythmus*. The older spelling "rime" still exists in Modern English as a rare alternative—for example, in *The Rime of the Ancient Mariner*. In linguistics and phonology, a distinction is sometimes made, using "rime" (or "rhyme") to refer to the nucleus and coda of a syllable, separate from poetic rhyme.

People often enjoy rhyme simply as a pleasing repeating pattern. It is a form of art that can communicate with a reader or audience, and it also works as a powerful mnemonic device, helping with short-term memory. Regular use of end rhyme helps mark the ends of lines, making the metrical structure clearer to the listener. Like other poetic techniques, poets use rhyme for their own purposes—William Shakespeare, for instance, often used a rhyming couplet to signal the end of a scene in a play.

The word "rhyme" can be used in both a specific and a general sense. Specifically, two words rhyme if their final stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical; two lines of poetry rhyme if their final strong positions contain such rhyming words. Examples include *sight* and *flight*, *deign* and *gain*, *madness* and *sadness*, and *love* and *dove*.

Perfect rhymes can be classified by where the final stressed syllable falls. A single (or masculine) rhyme stresses the final syllable of the words, as in *rhyme* and *sublime*. A double (or feminine) rhyme stresses the penultimate (second-to-last) syllable, like *picky* and *tricky*. A dactylic rhyme stresses the antepenultimate (third-to-last) syllable, as in *amorous* and *glamorous*. Feminine and dactylic rhymes can also appear as compound (or mosaic) rhymes, such as *poet* and *know it*.

In a general sense, rhyme refers to various kinds of phonetic similarity between words and their use in organizing verse. These general rhymes are classified by the degree and type of phonetic similarity. Syllabic rhyme occurs when the last syllable of each word sounds the same but doesn't necessarily contain stressed vowels (e.g., *cleaver* and *silver*, or *pitter* and *patter*; the final syllable of *bottle* and *fiddle* is a liquid consonant, /l/). Imperfect (or near) rhyme is between a stressed and an unstressed syllable, like *wing* and *caring*. Weak (or unaccented) rhyme is between two sets of one or more unstressed syllables, such as *hammer* and *carpenter*. Semirhyme has an extra syllable on one word, like *bend* and *ending*. Forced (or oblique) rhyme has an imperfect match in sound, as in *green* and *fiend* or *one* and *thumb*. Assonance matches vowels (e.g., *shake* and *hate*) and is sometimes called slant rhyme, along with consonance. Consonance matches consonants (e.g., *rabies* and *robbers*). Half rhyme (or slant rhyme) matches final consonants, like *hand* and *lend*. Pararhyme matches all consonants, as in *tick* and *tock*. Alliteration (or head rhyme) matches initial consonants, like *ship* and *short*.

Identical rhymes are considered less than perfect in English poetry, though they are valued more highly in other traditions, such as *rime riche* in French poetry. While homophones and homonyms meet the first condition for rhyming (the stressed vowel sound is the same), they fail the second: the preceding consonant must be different. In a perfect rhyme, the last stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical in both words. If the sound before the stressed vowel is also identical, the rhyme is sometimes seen as inferior and not truly perfect. An example of this "super-rhyme" or "more than perfect rhyme" is the identical rhyme, where both the vowels and the onsets of the rhyming syllables match, as in *gun* and *begun*. Punning rhymes, like *bare* and *bear*, are also identical rhymes. The rhyme can extend even further back than the last stressed vowel. If it goes all the way to the start of the line, making two lines sound very similar or identical, it is called a holorhyme (e.g., "For I scream / For ice cream"). In poetics, these are considered identity, not rhyme.

Eye rhymes (also called sight rhymes or spelling rhymes) involve similarity in spelling but not in sound, where the final sounds are spelled the same but pronounced differently. Examples in English include *cough* and *bough*, and *love* and *move*. Some early written poetry seems to contain these, but in many cases the words actually rhymed when the poem was written; later changes in pronunciation caused the mismatch.