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Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic effect in the final position of lines within poems or songs.[1] More broadly, a rhyme may also variously refer to other types of similar sounds near the ends of two or more words. Furthermore, the word rhyme has come to be sometimes used as a shorthand term for any brief poem, such as a nursery rhyme or Balliol rhyme.

Etymology

The word derives from Old French rime or ryme, which might 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).[2][3]

The spelling rhyme (from original rime) was introduced at the beginning of the Modern English period from a learned (but perhaps etymologically incorrect) association with Latin rhythmus.[2] The older spelling rime survives in Modern English as a rare alternative spelling; cf. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A distinction between the spellings is also sometimes made in the study of linguistics and phonology for which rime or rhyme is used to refer to the nucleus and coda of a syllable. Some prefer to spell it rime to distinguish it from the poetic rhyme covered by this article (see syllable rime).

Function of rhyming words

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[citation needed]. 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

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. Examples are sight and flight, deign and gain, madness and sadness, love and dove.

Perfect rhymes

Perfect rhymes can be classified by the location of the final stressed syllable.

  • single, also known as masculine: a rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words (rhyme, sublime)
  • double, also known as 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 (amorous, glamorous)

Feminine and dactylic rhymes may also be realized as compound (or mosaic) rhymes (poet, know it).

General rhymes

In the general sense, general rhyme can refer to various kinds of phonetic similarity between words, and to the use of such similar-sounding words in organizing verse. Rhymes in this general sense are classified according to the degree and manner of the phonetic similarity:

  • 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 is /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)
  • semirhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. (bend, ending)
  • 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. (hand , lend)
  • pararhyme: all consonants match. (tick, tock)
  • alliteration (or head rhyme): matching initial consonants. (ship, short)

Identical rhymes

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.[4][5] 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 as 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 very similar or identical, it is called a holorhyme ("For I scream/For ice cream").

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

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.[6] 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

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,” a mind rhyme has occurred.

Classification by position

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

  • Tail rhyme (also called end rhyme or rime couée) is a rhyme in the final syllable(s) of a verse (the most common kind).
  • Internal rhyme occurs when a word or phrase in the interior of a line rhymes with a word or phrase at the end of a line, or within a different line.
  • 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.[6]

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming lines in a poem.

History

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 BCE). Rhyme is also occasionally used in the Bible.[7] Classical Greek and Latin poetry did not usually rhyme,[8] but rhyme was used very occasionally. For instance, Catullus includes partial rhymes in the poem Cui dono lepidum novum libellum.[9] The ancient Greeks knew rhyme, and rhymes in The Wasps by Aristophanes are noted by a translator.[10]

Rhyme became a permanent - even obligatory - feature of poetry in Hebrew language, around the 4th century CE. It is found in the Jewish liturgical poetry written in the Byzantine empire era. This was realized by scholars only recently, thanks to the thousands of piyyuts that have been discovered in the Cairo Geniza. It is assumed that the principle of rhyme was transferred from Hebrew liturgical poetry to the poetry of the Syriac Christianity (written in Aramaic), and through this mediation introduced into Latin poetry and then into all other languages of Europe.[11]

Rhyme is central to classical Arabic poetry tracing back to its 6th century pre-Islamic roots. According to some archaic sources, Irish literature introduced the rhyme to Early Medieval Europe, but that is a disputed claim.[12] In the 7th century, the Irish had brought the art of rhyming verses to a high pitch of perfection. 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).[13] Arabic language poets used rhyme extensively from the first development of literary Arabic in the sixth century, as in their long, rhyming qasidas.[14]

Since dialects vary and languages change over time, lines that rhyme in a given register or era may not rhyme in another, and it may not be clear whether one should pronounce the words so that they rhyme. An example is this couplet from Handel's Judas Maccabaeus:

Rejoice, O Judah, and in songs divine
With cherubim and seraphim harmonious join.[15]

Rhyme in various languages

Arabic

Rhymes were widely spread in the Arabian peninsula around the 6th century, in letters, poems and songs, as well as long, rhyming qasidas.[14] In addition, the Quran uses a form of rhymed prose named saj'.

Celtic languages

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."[16] 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:

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

Chinese

Besides the vowel/consonant aspect of rhyming, Chinese 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.

English

Old English poetry is mostly alliterative verse. One of the earliest rhyming poems in English is The Rhyming Poem.

As stress is important in English, lexical stress is one of the factors that affects 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.[6]

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", while "silver" could become a combination of "bright and argent"). A skilled orator might be able to tweak the pronunciation of certain words to facilitate a stronger rhyme (for example, pronouncing 'orange' as 'oringe' to rhyme with 'door hinge')

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

The Measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom...

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

Rhymes, meters, stanza forms, etc., are like servants. If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect, the result is an orderly happy household. If he is too tyrannical, they give notice; if he lacks authority, they become slovenly, impertinent, drunk and dishonest.

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

French

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 ("finger") and doit ("must") or point ("point") and point ("not") is not only acceptable but quite common.

Rhymes are sometimes classified into the categories of "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 "tu" with "vu" 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:

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 "double rhyme", while words not ending with this silent "e" made up a "single rhyme". It was a principle of stanza-formation that single and double rhymes had to alternate in the stanza. Virtually all 17th-century French plays in verse alternate masculine and feminine Alexandrin couplets.

The now-silent final consonants present a more complex case. They, too, were traditionally an integral part of the rhyme, such that "pont" rhymed with "vont" but not with "long". (The voicing of consonants was lost in liaison and thus ignored, so "pont" also rhymed with "rond".) There are a few rules that govern most word-final consonants in archaic French pronunciation:

  • The distinction between voiced and unvoiced consonants is lost in the final position. Therefore, "d" and "t" (both pronounced /t/) rhyme. So too with "c", "g" and "q" (all /k/), "b" and "p" (both /p/), and "s", "x" and "z" (all /z/). Rhymes ending in /z/ are called "plural rhymes" because most plural nouns and adjectives end in "s" or "x".
  • Nasal vowels rhyme whether spelled with "m" or "n" (e.g. "essaim" rhymes with "sain" but not with "saint").
  • If a word ends in a stop followed by "s", the stop is silent and ignored for purposes of rhyming (e.g. "temps" rhymes with "dents"). In the archaic orthography some of these silent stops are omitted from the spelling as well (e.g. "dens" for "dents").

German

Because German phonology features a wide array of vowel sounds, certain imperfect rhymes are widely admitted in German poetry. These include rhyming "e" with "ä" and "ö", rhyming "i" with "ü", rhyming "ei" with "eu" (spelled "äu" in some words) and rhyming a long vowel with its short counterpart.

Some examples of imperfect rhymes (all from Friedrich Schiller's "An die Freude"):

  • Deine Zauber binden wieder / Alle Menschen werden Brüder
  • Freude trinken alle Wesen / Alle Guten, alle Bösen

Greek

See Homoioteleuton

Ancient Greek poetry is strictly metrical. Rhyme is used, if at all, only as an occasional rhetorical flourish.

The first Greek to write rhyming poetry was the fourteenth-century Cretan Stephanos Sachlikis. Rhyme is now a common fixture of Greek poetry.

Hebrew

Ancient Hebrew rarely employed rhyme, e.g. in Exodus 29 35: ועשית לאהרן ולבניו כָּכה, ככל אשר צויתי אֹתָכה (the identical part in both rhyming words being / 'axa/ ). Rhyme became a permanent - even obligatory - feature of poetry in Hebrew language, around the 4th century CE. It is found in the Jewish liturgical poetry written in the Byzantine empire era. This was realized by scholars only recently, thanks to the thousands of piyyuts that have been discovered in the Cairo Geniza. It is assumed that the principle of rhyme was transferred from Hebrew liturgical poetry to the poetry of the Syriac Christianity (written in Aramaic), and through this mediation introduced into Latin poetry and then into all other languages of Europe.[17]

Latin

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:

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:

Medieval poetry may mix Latin and vernacular languages. Mixing languages in verse or rhyming words in different languages is termed macaronic.

Polish

In Polish literature rhyme was used from the beginning. Unrhymed verse was never popular, although it was sometimes imitated from Latin. Homer's, Virgil's and even Milton's epic poems were furnished with rhymes by Polish translators.[18] Because of paroxytonic accentuation in Polish, feminine rhymes always prevailed. Rules of Polish rhyme were established in 16th century. Then only feminine rhymes were allowed in syllabic verse system. Together with introducing syllabo-accentual metres, masculine rhymes began to occur in Polish poetry. They were most popular at the end of 19th century. The most frequent rhyme scheme in Old Polish (16th - 18th centuries) was couplet AABBCCDD..., but Polish poets, having perfect knowledge of Italian language and literature, experimented with other schemes, among others ottava rima (ABABABCC) and sonnet (ABBA ABBA CDC DCD or ABBA ABBA CDCD EE).

The metre of Mickiewicz's sonnet is the Polish alexandrine (tridecasyllable, in Polish "trzynastozgłoskowiec"): 13(7+6) and its rhymes are feminine: [anu] and [odzi].

Portuguese

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: ânimo, "animus", and unânimo, "unanimous").

Russian

Rhyme was introduced into Russian poetry in the 18th century. Folk poetry had generally been unrhymed, relying more on dactylic line endings for effect. Two words ending in an accented vowel are only considered to rhyme if they share a preceding consonant. Vowel pairs rhyme—even though non-Russian speakers may not perceive them as the same sound. Consonant pairs rhyme if both are devoiced. As in French, formal poetry traditionally alternates between masculine and feminine rhymes.

Early 18th-century poetry demanded perfect rhymes that 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.[20]

Sanskrit

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.

Spanish

Spanish mainly differentiates two types of rhymes:

  • rima consonante (consonant rhyme): Those words of the same stress with identical endings, matching consonants and vowels, for example robo (robbery) and lobo (wolf), legua (league) and yegua (mare) or canción (song) and montón (pile).
  • rima asonante (assonant rhyme): those words of the same stress that only the vowels identical at the end, for example zapato (shoe) and brazo (arm), ave (bird) and ame (would love), reloj (watch) and feroz (fierce), puerta (door) and ruleta (roulette).

Spanish rhyme is also classified by stress type since different types cannot rhyme with each other:

  • rima llana (plane rhyme): the rhyming words are unaccented, for example cama (bed) and rama (branch), pereza (laziness) and moneda (coin) or espejo (mirror) and pienso (I think).
  • rima grave (paroxytone rhyme): The rhyming words are accented on the last syllable, for example: cartón (cardboard) and limón (lemon), jerez (sherry) and revés (backwards). Grave words that end in a single same vowel can be asonante rhymes for example compró (he/she bought) and llevó (he/she carried), tendré (I will have) and pediré (I will ask), perdí (I lost) and medí (I measured).
  • rima esdrújula (odd rhyme): The rhyming words are accented on the antepenult. For example, mácula (stain) and báscula (scale), estrépito (noise) and intrépido (fearless), rápido (fast) and pálido (pallid).

Tamil

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.

Vietnamese

Rhymes are used in Vietnamese to produce similes. The following is an example of a Rhyming Simile:

Nghèo như con mèo
/ŋɛu ɲɯ kɔn mɛu/
"Poor as a cat"

Compare the above Vietnamese example, which is a rhyming simile, to the English phrase "(as) poor as a church mouse", which is only a semantic simile.[21]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ . Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford University Press. 2013. Archived from the original on July 7, 2012.
  2. ^ a b rhyme, n. OED Online. Oxford University Press. March 2013. Retrieved 2013-04-15.
  3. ^ Harper, Douglas (2000–2012). "Online Etymology Dictionary". Retrieved 2013-04-15.
  4. ^ "Rhyme, which cites Whitfield's University Rhyming Dictionary, 1951". myclasses.net. Retrieved 2015-08-25.
  5. ^ "Rhyming and Songwriting". michael-thomas.com. Retrieved 2015-08-25.
  6. ^ a b c Stillman, Frances (1966). The Poet's Manual and Rhyming Dictionary. Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0500270309.
  7. ^ "Old Testament survey: the message, form, and background of the Old Testament pg. 236"
  8. ^ Wesling, Donald (1980). The chances of rhyme. University of California Press. pp. x–xi, 38–42. ISBN 978-0-520-03861-5.
  9. ^ . prosentient.com.au. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-08-25.
  10. ^ Aristophanes; Slavitt, D.R.; Bovie, S.P. (1999). Aristophanes, 2: Wasps, Lysistrata, Frogs, The Sexual Congress. University of Pennsylvania Press, Incorporated. p. 4. ISBN 9780812216844. Retrieved 2015-08-25.
  11. ^ See: Benjamin Harshav (Hrushovski)'s article on Hebrew Prosody in the Encyclopedia Judaica
  12. ^ "Article about early Irish literature by Prof. Douglas Hyde in The Catholic Encyclopedia"
  13. ^ Menocal, Maria Rosa (2003). The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History. University of Pennsylvania. p. 88. ISBN 0-8122-1324-6.
  14. ^ a b Sperl, Stefan, ed. (1996). Qasida poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa. Brill. p. 49. ISBN 978-90-04-10387-0.
  15. ^ Kelly, Thomas Forest (2011). Early Music: A Very Short Introduction, p.83. ISBN 978-0-19-973076-6.
  16. ^ Ó Cuív, Brian (1967). 'The Phonetic Basis of Classical Modern Irish Rhyme'. Ériu 20, pp. 96-97
  17. ^ See: Benjamin Harshav (Hrushovski)'s article on Hebrew Prosody in the Encyclopedia Judaica
  18. ^ Wiktor Jarosław Darasz, Mały przewodnik po wierszu polskim, Kraków 2003, p. 19 (in Polish).
  19. ^ "Adam Mickiewicz's Sonnets from the Crimea at Sonnet Central".
  20. ^ Wachtel, Michael (2006). The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780511206986.
  21. ^ See p. 98 in Thuy Nga Nguyen and Ghil'ad Zuckermann (2012), "Stupid as a Coin: Meaning and Rhyming Similes in Vietnamese", International Journal of Language Studies 6 (4), pp. 97-118.

External links

rhyme, other, uses, disambiguation, rhyme, repetition, similar, sounds, usually, exact, same, phonemes, final, stressed, syllables, following, syllables, more, words, most, often, this, kind, perfect, rhyming, consciously, used, musical, aesthetic, effect, fin. For other uses see Rhyme disambiguation A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds usually the exact same phonemes in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words Most often this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic effect in the final position of lines within poems or songs 1 More broadly a rhyme may also variously refer to other types of similar sounds near the ends of two or more words Furthermore the word rhyme has come to be sometimes used as a shorthand term for any brief poem such as a nursery rhyme or Balliol rhyme Contents 1 Etymology 2 Function of rhyming words 3 Types of rhyme 3 1 Perfect rhymes 3 2 General rhymes 3 3 Identical rhymes 3 4 Eye rhyme 3 5 Mind rhyme 3 6 Classification by position 4 History 5 Rhyme in various languages 5 1 Arabic 5 2 Celtic languages 5 3 Chinese 5 4 English 5 5 French 5 6 German 5 7 Greek 5 8 Hebrew 5 9 Latin 5 10 Polish 5 11 Portuguese 5 12 Russian 5 13 Sanskrit 5 14 Spanish 5 15 Tamil 5 16 Vietnamese 6 See also 7 Notes 8 External linksEtymology EditThe word derives from Old French rime or ryme which might be derived from Old Frankish rim a Germanic term meaning series sequence attested in Old English Old English rim meaning enumeration series numeral and Old High German rim ultimately cognate to Old Irish rim Greek ἀri8mos arithmos number Alternatively the Old French words may derive from Latin rhythmus from Greek ῥy8mos rhythmos rhythm 2 3 The spelling rhyme from original rime was introduced at the beginning of the Modern English period from a learned but perhaps etymologically incorrect association with Latin rhythmus 2 The older spelling rime survives in Modern English as a rare alternative spelling cf The Rime of the Ancient Mariner A distinction between the spellings is also sometimes made in the study of linguistics and phonology for which rime or rhyme is used to refer to the nucleus and coda of a syllable Some prefer to spell it rime to distinguish it from the poetic rhyme covered by this article see syllable rime Function of rhyming words EditRhyme 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 citation needed 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 EditThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed January 2012 Learn how and when to remove this template message 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 Examples are sight and flight deign and gain madness and sadness love and dove Perfect rhymes Edit Main article Perfect rhyme Perfect rhymes can be classified by the location of the final stressed syllable single also known as masculine a rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words rhyme sublime double also known as 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 amorous glamorous Feminine and dactylic rhymes may also be realized as compound or mosaic rhymes poet know it General rhymes Edit In the general sense general rhyme can refer to various kinds of phonetic similarity between words and to the use of such similar sounding words in organizing verse Rhymes in this general sense are classified according to the degree and manner of the phonetic similarity 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 is 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 semirhyme a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word bend ending 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 hand lend pararhyme all consonants match tick tock 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 4 5 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 as 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 very similar or identical 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 6 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 a mind rhyme has occurred Classification by position Edit Rhymes may be classified according to their position in the verse Tail rhyme also called end rhyme or rime couee is a rhyme in the final syllable s of a verse the most common kind Internal rhyme occurs when a word or phrase in the interior of a line rhymes with a word or phrase at the end of a line or within a different line 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 6 A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming lines in a poem History EditIn 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 BCE Rhyme is also occasionally used in the Bible 7 Classical Greek and Latin poetry did not usually rhyme 8 but rhyme was used very occasionally For instance Catullus includes partial rhymes in the poem Cui dono lepidum novum libellum 9 The ancient Greeks knew rhyme and rhymes in The Wasps by Aristophanes are noted by a translator 10 Rhyme became a permanent even obligatory feature of poetry in Hebrew language around the 4th century CE It is found in the Jewish liturgical poetry written in the Byzantine empire era This was realized by scholars only recently thanks to the thousands of piyyuts that have been discovered in the Cairo Geniza It is assumed that the principle of rhyme was transferred from Hebrew liturgical poetry to the poetry of the Syriac Christianity written in Aramaic and through this mediation introduced into Latin poetry and then into all other languages of Europe 11 Rhyme is central to classical Arabic poetry tracing back to its 6th century pre Islamic roots According to some archaic sources Irish literature introduced the rhyme to Early Medieval Europe but that is a disputed claim 12 In the 7th century the Irish had brought the art of rhyming verses to a high pitch of perfection 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 13 Arabic language poets used rhyme extensively from the first development of literary Arabic in the sixth century as in their long rhyming qasidas 14 Since dialects vary and languages change over time lines that rhyme in a given register or era may not rhyme in another and it may not be clear whether one should pronounce the words so that they rhyme An example is this couplet from Handel s Judas Maccabaeus Rejoice O Judah and in songs divine With cherubim and seraphim harmonious join 15 Rhyme in various languages EditThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed February 2016 Learn how and when to remove this template message Arabic Edit Rhymes were widely spread in the Arabian peninsula around the 6th century in letters poems and songs as well as long rhyming qasidas 14 In addition the Quran uses a form of rhymed prose named saj 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 o Cuiv 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 16 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 Brid og Ni Mhaille Is a Bhrid og Ni Mhaille ɪsˠ e ˈvɾʲiːdʲ oːɡ n ʲiː ˈwaːl ʲe S tu d fhag mo chroi craite sˠ t ˠuː ˈd ˠaːɡ me xɾʲiː ˈkɾˠaːtʲe Oh young Bridget O Malley You have left my heart breakingHere the vowels are the same but the consonants although both palatalized do not fall into the same class in the bardic rhyming scheme Chinese Edit Further information Rime dictionary Besides the vowel consonant aspect of rhyming Chinese 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 English Edit See also English poetry Old English poetry is mostly alliterative verse One of the earliest rhyming poems in English is The Rhyming Poem As stress is important in English lexical stress is one of the factors that affects 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 6 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 while silver could become a combination of bright and argent A skilled orator might be able to tweak the pronunciation of certain words to facilitate a stronger rhyme for example pronouncing orange as oringe to rhyme with door hinge One view of rhyme in English is from John Milton s preface to Paradise Lost The Measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime as that of Homer in Greek and of Virgil in Latin Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse in longer Works especially but the Invention of a barbarous Age to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter grac t indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets carried away by Custom A more tempered view is taken by W H Auden in The Dyer s Hand Rhymes meters stanza forms etc are like servants If the master is fair enough to win their affection and firm enough to command their respect the result is an orderly happy household If he is too tyrannical they give notice if he lacks authority they become slovenly impertinent drunk and dishonest Forced or clumsy rhyme is often a key ingredient of doggerel French Edit 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 finger and doit must or point point and point not is not only acceptable but quite common Rhymes are sometimes classified into the categories of 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 tu with vu 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 Arene a la Tour Magne a Nimes Gallus the Queen s lover went a magnanimous gesture Gallantly from the Arena to the Great Tower at Nimes 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 double rhyme while words not ending with this silent e made up a single rhyme It was a principle of stanza formation that single and double rhymes had to alternate in the stanza Virtually all 17th century French plays in verse alternate masculine and feminine Alexandrin couplets The now silent final consonants present a more complex case They too were traditionally an integral part of the rhyme such that pont rhymed with vont but not with long The voicing of consonants was lost in liaison and thus ignored so pont also rhymed with rond There are a few rules that govern most word final consonants in archaic French pronunciation The distinction between voiced and unvoiced consonants is lost in the final position Therefore d and t both pronounced t rhyme So too with c g and q all k b and p both p and s x and z all z Rhymes ending in z are called plural rhymes because most plural nouns and adjectives end in s or x Nasal vowels rhyme whether spelled with m or n e g essaim rhymes with sain but not with saint If a word ends in a stop followed by s the stop is silent and ignored for purposes of rhyming e g temps rhymes with dents In the archaic orthography some of these silent stops are omitted from the spelling as well e g dens for dents German Edit Because German phonology features a wide array of vowel sounds certain imperfect rhymes are widely admitted in German poetry These include rhyming e with a and o rhyming i with u rhyming ei with eu spelled au in some words and rhyming a long vowel with its short counterpart Some examples of imperfect rhymes all from Friedrich Schiller s An die Freude Deine Zauber binden wieder Alle Menschen werden Bruder Freude trinken alle Wesen Alle Guten alle BosenGreek Edit See HomoioteleutonAncient Greek poetry is strictly metrical Rhyme is used if at all only as an occasional rhetorical flourish The first Greek to write rhyming poetry was the fourteenth century Cretan Stephanos Sachlikis Rhyme is now a common fixture of Greek poetry Hebrew Edit Ancient Hebrew rarely employed rhyme e g in Exodus 29 35 ועשית לאהרן ולבניו כ כה ככל אשר צויתי א ת כה the identical part in both rhyming words being axa Rhyme became a permanent even obligatory feature of poetry in Hebrew language around the 4th century CE It is found in the Jewish liturgical poetry written in the Byzantine empire era This was realized by scholars only recently thanks to the thousands of piyyuts that have been discovered in the Cairo Geniza It is assumed that the principle of rhyme was transferred from Hebrew liturgical poetry to the poetry of the Syriac Christianity written in Aramaic and through this mediation introduced into Latin poetry and then into all other languages of Europe 17 Latin Edit 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 consulBut 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 Medieval poetry may mix Latin and vernacular languages Mixing languages in verse or rhyming words in different languages is termed macaronic Polish Edit In Polish literature rhyme was used from the beginning Unrhymed verse was never popular although it was sometimes imitated from Latin Homer s Virgil s and even Milton s epic poems were furnished with rhymes by Polish translators 18 Because of paroxytonic accentuation in Polish feminine rhymes always prevailed Rules of Polish rhyme were established in 16th century Then only feminine rhymes were allowed in syllabic verse system Together with introducing syllabo accentual metres masculine rhymes began to occur in Polish poetry They were most popular at the end of 19th century The most frequent rhyme scheme in Old Polish 16th 18th centuries was couplet AABBCCDD but Polish poets having perfect knowledge of Italian language and literature experimented with other schemes among others ottava rima ABABABCC and sonnet ABBA ABBA CDC DCD or ABBA ABBA CDCD EE Wplynalem na suchego przestwor oceanu Woz nurza sie w zielonosc i jak lodka brodzi Srod fali lak szumiacych srod kwiatow powodzi Omijam koralowe ostrowy burzanu Across sea meadows measureless I go My wagon sinking under grass so tall The flowery petals in foam on me fall And blossom isles float by I do not know 19 Adam Mickiewicz Stepy akermanskie Sonety krymskie lines 1 4 The Ackerman Steppe Sonnets from the Crimea translated by Edna Worthley UnderwoodThe metre of Mickiewicz s sonnet is the Polish alexandrine tridecasyllable in Polish trzynastozgloskowiec 13 7 6 and its rhymes are feminine anu and odzi Portuguese Edit 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 ao 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 ve la to see her rima esdruxula odd rhyme rhyme between proparoxytonic words example animo animus and unanimo unanimous Russian Edit Rhyme was introduced into Russian poetry in the 18th century Folk poetry had generally been unrhymed relying more on dactylic line endings for effect Two words ending in an accented vowel are only considered to rhyme if they share a preceding consonant Vowel pairs rhyme even though non Russian speakers may not perceive them as the same sound Consonant pairs rhyme if both are devoiced As in French formal poetry traditionally alternates between masculine and feminine rhymes Early 18th century poetry demanded perfect rhymes that 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 20 Sanskrit Edit Patterns of rich rhyme prasa 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 adiprasa first syllable dvitiyakṣara prasa second syllable antyaprasa final syllable etc Spanish Edit Spanish mainly differentiates two types of rhymes rima consonante consonant rhyme Those words of the same stress with identical endings matching consonants and vowels for example robo robbery and lobo wolf legua league and yegua mare or cancion song and monton pile rima asonante assonant rhyme those words of the same stress that only the vowels identical at the end for example zapato shoe and brazo arm ave bird and ame would love reloj watch and feroz fierce puerta door and ruleta roulette Spanish rhyme is also classified by stress type since different types cannot rhyme with each other rima llana plane rhyme the rhyming words are unaccented for example cama bed and rama branch pereza laziness and moneda coin or espejo mirror and pienso I think rima grave paroxytone rhyme The rhyming words are accented on the last syllable for example carton cardboard and limon lemon jerez sherry and reves backwards Grave words that end in a single same vowel can be asonante rhymes for example compro he she bought and llevo he she carried tendre I will have and pedire I will ask perdi I lost and medi I measured rima esdrujula odd rhyme The rhyming words are accented on the antepenult For example macula stain and bascula scale estrepito noise and intrepido fearless rapido fast and palido pallid Tamil Edit 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 mōnai alliteration toṭai epiphora and iraṭṭai kiḷavi parallelism Some classical Tamil poetry forms such as veṇpa have rigid grammars for rhyme to the point that they could be expressed as a context free grammar Vietnamese Edit Rhymes are used in Vietnamese to produce similes The following is an example of a Rhyming Simile Ngheo như con meo ŋɛu ɲɯ kɔn mɛu Poor as a cat Compare the above Vietnamese example which is a rhyming simile to the English phrase as poor as a church mouse which is only a semantic simile 21 See also EditAlliteration Assonance Glossary of poetry terms An Introduction to Rhyme List of English words without rhymes Consonance Multisyllabic rhymes Rhyme in rap Rhyming recipe Rhyming slang e g Cockney rhyming slang Rhyming spiritual Rime table syllable chart of the Chinese language Traditional rhymeNotes Edit Rhyme Oxford Dictionaries Oxford University Press 2013 Archived from the original on July 7 2012 a b rhyme n OED Online Oxford University Press March 2013 Retrieved 2013 04 15 Harper Douglas 2000 2012 Online Etymology Dictionary Retrieved 2013 04 15 Rhyme which cites Whitfield s University Rhyming Dictionary 1951 myclasses net Retrieved 2015 08 25 Rhyming and Songwriting michael thomas com Retrieved 2015 08 25 a b c Stillman Frances 1966 The Poet s Manual and Rhyming Dictionary Thames and Hudson ISBN 0500270309 Old Testament survey the message form and background of the Old Testament pg 236 Wesling Donald 1980 The chances of rhyme University of California Press pp x xi 38 42 ISBN 978 0 520 03861 5 Bernard of Morlaix METRE AND RHYME prosentient com au Archived from the original on 2016 03 04 Retrieved 2015 08 25 Aristophanes Slavitt D R Bovie S P 1999 Aristophanes 2 Wasps Lysistrata Frogs The Sexual Congress University of Pennsylvania Press Incorporated p 4 ISBN 9780812216844 Retrieved 2015 08 25 See Benjamin Harshav Hrushovski s article on Hebrew Prosody in the Encyclopedia Judaica Article about early Irish literature by Prof Douglas Hyde in The Catholic Encyclopedia Menocal Maria Rosa 2003 The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History University of Pennsylvania p 88 ISBN 0 8122 1324 6 a b Sperl Stefan ed 1996 Qasida poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa Brill p 49 ISBN 978 90 04 10387 0 Kelly Thomas Forest 2011 Early Music A Very Short Introduction p 83 ISBN 978 0 19 973076 6 o Cuiv Brian 1967 The Phonetic Basis of Classical Modern Irish Rhyme Eriu 20 pp 96 97 See Benjamin Harshav Hrushovski s article on Hebrew Prosody in the Encyclopedia Judaica Wiktor Jaroslaw Darasz Maly przewodnik po wierszu polskim Krakow 2003 p 19 in Polish Adam Mickiewicz s Sonnets from the Crimea at Sonnet Central Wachtel Michael 2006 The Cambridge Introduction to Russian Poetry Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 9780511206986 See p 98 in Thuy Nga Nguyen and Ghil ad Zuckermann 2012 Stupid as a Coin Meaning and Rhyming Similes in Vietnamese International Journal of Language Studies 6 4 pp 97 118 External links Edit Look up Rhymes English or Special PrefixIndex Rhymes English in Wiktionary the free dictionary Wikimedia Commons has media related to Rhymes Directory of rhyming dictionaries at the Open Directory Project Querying rhyming words in WolframAlpha Look up Category English rhymes or Category Rhymes in Wiktionary the free dictionary Gosse Edmund William 1911 Rhyme Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 23 11th ed pp 274 275 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Rhyme amp oldid 1130527983, wikipedia, wiki, book, 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