How do words rhyme

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Download Article Explore this Article methods. Tips and Warnings. Related Articles. Article Summary. Method 1. Think of all the rhyming possibilities before settling on one. Change the prefix of that word to every letter in the alphabet. For example, if you needed to find a word that rhymes with, "fog," start at A and go "aog, bog, cog, dog, eog, Write down every word that is real, such as "bog," "cog," and "dog" and only select the most interesting choices.

If one doesn't work, alter the first line to serve the poem or song. When going through the alphabet, inserting an R or an L into short words will often make another word. So if you were looking for a rhyme with cat, you could find bat as well as brat; fat, as well as flat and frat. It's a trick of the trade. Bury rhymes in longer words. Use other multi-letter prefixes you know to build more complicated words with which to rhyme.

First letters won't always cut it. For example, "frog" and "clog" are real words that rhyme with bog. Try multisyllabic words like "bullfrog" or "epilogue. Only choose appropriate words. If no word works, consider changing the keyword to a synonym of that word, or abandoning your rhyme scheme for a line or two. For example, you could substitute "mist" for "fog," but only use rhymes to improve the poem or song, never to rhyme for the sake of rhyming.

Use slant rhymes. Hard rhymes, sometimes called true rhymes, "sound" right to our ear because of identical vowel and consonant combinations. Slant rhymes offer complexity and surprise to a regular series of hard rhymes. Consult a rhyming dictionary. It's worth it to invest in a good rhyming dictionary to consult. It's not cheating to use a dictionary for rhyming just as it isn't cheating to use a thesaurus while writing. Studying up on good rhymes will also build your vocabulary, giving you a larger collection of words to use in future songs, poems, or freestyles.

Always use rhymes to move the piece forward. Rhyming is a technique that writers and musicians can use in their compositions to emphasize words and images and unspool surprising and complicated poetry.

Use it to add little bits of color and texture to your work, but not as the reason for creating it. If something needs rhymes, use them well. If no, leave them out. Method 2. Write freely. When you're faced with a blank sheet of paper and want to fill it with poetry, it's best to avoid rhymes entirely in the earliest draft. Trying to start with rhyme is a good way to end up with cat-hat-bat rhymes and bad poetry. Instead, write free verse or journal freely and see what comes up.

What are you trying to say? Start with a line or an image that strikes you and start producing the raw material from which you might build a more structured formal rhyming poem. Find a guiding line.

After you've written for a while, turn your piece of paper over, or open a new word processing document. Take your favorite line from your free write and write it at the top of the page. What struck you about this? What's good about it? Use that as a guide for a possible poem. Explore the premise or image that the line contains. Often, a free write will end on a particularly good line you might want to use as a starting place. Look to the last few sentences for a guideline. Consider an appropriate form for the poem.

If you want to write a formal poem, familiarize yourself with common rhyming forms and the uses of those forms to pick one that will work best for the theme of your poem. Also worth nothing is that many older examples of eye rhyme occur not because the author originally intended them but because the way that words are pronounced changes over time.

All men make faults, and even I in this, Authorizing thy trespass with comp are , Myself corrupting salving thy amiss, Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are This poem by W. Yeats gives an example of slant rhyme , since "moon" and "on" don't rhyme perfectly but end in the same consonant, while "bodies" and "ladies" don't use the same sounds in their stressed syllables, but end with identical unstressed syllables.

Here are the first four lines of the poem:. When have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies Of the dark leopards of the moon? All the wild witches, those most noble ladies. It's pretty common for songwriters to use slant rhymes in addition to perfect rhymes —especially in rap. This track by Big Daddy Kane gives an expert example of complex rhyme that makes use of dactylic as well as double slant rhyme. If that's confusing, don't worry—all you need to know is that these slant rhymes are almost perfect meaning they use assonance instead of identical sounds.

The first highlighted example is dac tyl ic because the final three syllables of both lines rhyme and have the same stress pattern stressed-unstressed-stressed , whereas the second highlighted example is doub le because the final two syllables of the lines rhyme and also share the same stress pattern stressed-unstressed.

The heat is on so feel the fire Come off the empire, on a more higher Level than def, one step beyond dope The suckers all scope and hope to cope but nope Cause I can never let 'em on t o p o f m e I play 'em out like a game of Mon o p o l y Let 'em speed around the board like an A str o Then send 'em to jail for trying to p a ss G o Shaking 'em up, breaking 'em up, taking no stuff But it still ain't loud enough.

Note how Kane here creates his slant rhymes not through simple pairs of words, but by sometimes matching sets of words "on top of me" with single words that make up the same number of syllables "monopoly". This excerpt from a poem by John Milton is a good example of forced rhyme , since the poet had to alter the spelling of two different words in order to make them seem to rhyme with the word "youth.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth , Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.

Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth That I to manhood am arriv'd so near; And inward ripeness doth much less appear, That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th. Notice, too, how the syntax in line 4 is slightly unusual: it would be more natural to have written "But my late spring shows no bud or blossom.

This example makes unusual use of enjambment a line break without punctuation to split the word "nightgown" in half so it rhymes with "white"—an example of broken rhyme. The rhyme scheme here is ABAB. When he walks in waterproof white, The children run after him so! Calling out, "He's gone out in his night- Gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh! Writers use rhyme because it makes language sound more beautiful and thoughtfully-composed, like music.

Especially in formal verse since it uses a strict meter , rhymes repeat at regular intervals, dramatically increasing the rhythm and musicality of poetry and thus making it not only more pleasant to listen to but easier to understand and more memorable. While strict rhyme schemes may have fallen out of favor with many poets writing today—who prefer free verse to the more constraining forms of formal verse—more subtle forms of rhyme such as assonance remain ever popular for increasing the aesthetic quality of a poetic composition.

In addition to poetry, rhyme is common in riddles, nursery rhymes, jokes, and children's books, since it also aids in memorization. It's also common in song lyrics, for many of the same reasons it's popular in poetry.

Rhyme Definition. Rhyme Examples. Rhyme Function. Rhyme Resources. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Teach your students to analyze literature like LitCharts does. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts.

The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of every Shakespeare play. Sign Up. Already have an account? Sign in. Many include more than one type. Be on the lookout for different rhyme scheme examples in poems. Now that you know about many different types of rhymes, take a deeper dive into literary devices commonly used in poetry.

Start by discovering the various sound devices used in poetry. From there, explore alliteration vs. All rights reserved. Different Types of Rhymes Poetry is a beautiful form of expression. Assonance in Rhyme Assonance involves using repeated vowel sounds in words that are close to each other. Consonance in Rhyme Consonance involves repeating consonant sounds in words that are close together.

There are many examples of consonance , including: d ump, d ame and d amp m e t er, m i t er and m e t ric m i l e, m o l e and m ea l. Dactyl Meter Dactyl meter is a rhyming pattern in which the first syllable is stressed and followed by two unstressed syllables. Eye Rhyme Eye rhyme is based on spelling and not sound. Example of eye rhyme word pairs include: m ove and l ove c ough and b ough f ood and g ood d eath and wr eath.

Feminine Rhyme Feminine rhyme occurs when a word has two or more syllables that rhyme with each other. Examples of feminine rhyme word pairs include: back ing and hack ing trick y and pick y moan ing and groan ing gen er ate and ven er ate. Head Rhyme Also called alliteration or initial rhyme, head rhyme has the same initial consonant at the beginning of the words. Word pairs that illustrate head rhyme include: b lue and b low s un and s and m erry and m onkey.

Identical Rhyme Identical rhyme is rhyming a word with itself by using the exact same word in the rhyming position. Internal Rhyme With internal rhyme, rhyming occurs within lines of poetry.

Light Rhyme With light rhyme, one syllable is stressed and another is not. Examples include: frog and dia log mat and com bat. Macaronic Rhyme Macaronic rhyme is a technique that rhymes words from different languages.

Masculine Rhyme With masculine rhyme , the rhyme is based on a single stressed syllable in both words. Examples that illustrate masculine rhyme include: sup port and re port d ime and sub lime di vulge and bulge. Near Rhyme Near rhyme goes by several different names.

Examples include: bluepri nt and abhorre nt qui ck and ba ck fu n and mea n cli mb and thu mb. Perfect Rhyme Sometimes called exact, full or true, a perfect rhyme is the typical rhyme where the ending sounds match exactly. Examples include: c at and h at egg and b eg ink and p ink b oo and tr ue s oap and h ope. Rich Rhyme Rich rhymes involve words that are pronounced the same but are not spelled alike and have different meanings. Examples include: raise and raze break and brake vary and very lessen and lesson.