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Definition: rhyme also rime 1 from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate(R) Dictionary

(13c) 1 a (1) : rhyming verse (2) : poetry b : a composition in verse that rhymes 2 a : correspondence in terminal sounds of units of composition or utterance (as two or more words or lines of verse) b : one of two or more words thus corresponding in sound c :correspondence of other than terminal word sounds: as (1) : alliteration (2) : internal rhyme 3 : rhythm measure

rhyme•less adj

rhyme

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
or rime, the most prominent of the literary artifices used in versification . Although it was used in ancient East Asian poetry, rhyme was practically unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans. With the decline of the classical quantitative meters and the substitution of accentual meters, rhyme began to develop, especially in the sacred Latin poetry of the early Christian church. In the Middle Ages, end rhyme (rhyme at the end of a line), assonance (repetition of related vowel sounds), and alliteration (repetition of consonants, particularly at the beginning of words) were predominant in vernacular verse. After 1300 rhyme came to be the outstanding metrical mark of poetry until the introduction of blank verse in the 16th cent. Alliteration and assonance were both called rhyme by early writers, but today two words are said to rhyme only when the sound of the final accented syllable of one word (placed usually at the end of a line of verse) agrees with the final accented syllable of…
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Full text Article rhyme

From Word Origins
Etymologically, rhyme and rhythm are the same word. Both go back to medieval Latin rythmus ‘rhythm’, but whereas rhythm has reached us almost unchanged, rhyme has come via a branch line. The sort of accented verse to which the medieval Latin word was applied commonly rhymed, and so when rythmus…
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Full text Article RHYME

From The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms
There have been two chief views on the origin and devel. of rhyme. The derivationist position is that rhyme originated in one locus and was disseminated to all others. Turner argued as early as 1808 that rhyme originated in Chinese or Sanskrit (but not Ar.; for Ren. arguments about the Ar. origin of…
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Full text Article rhyme

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
or rime, the most prominent of the literary artifices used in versification . Although it was used in ancient East Asian poetry, rhyme was practically unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans. With the decline of the classical quantitative meters and the substitution of accentual meters, rhyme began…
| 492 words
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Full text Article rhyme

From The Macquarie Dictionary
agreement in the terminal sounds of lines of verse, or of words. Plural: rhymes a word agreeing with another in terminal sound. Plural: rhymes verse or poetry having correspondence in the terminal sounds of the line. Plural: rhymes a poem or piece of verse having such correspondence. Plural: rhymes…
| 243 words
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Full text Article rhyme

From The Chambers Dictionary
in two or more words, identity of sound from the last stressed vowel to the end, the consonant or consonant group preceding not being the same in both or all cases; extended to other correspondences in sound, such as head-rhyme or alliteration, to inexact correspondences, such as eye-rhyme , and to…
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Full text Article RHYME

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
I. Origin and History of Rhyme in World Poetries II. Rhyme in Western Poetries, Particularly in English I. Origin and History of Rhyme in World Poetries There have been two chief views on the origin and devel. of rhyme. The derivationist position is that rhyme originated in one locus and was…
| 10,802 words
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Full text Article rhyme

From The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language
Correspondence of sounds at the ends of words or phrases, especially when involving the last stressed vowel and all succeeding sounds in each of two or more such words or phrases. A word that exhibits such correspondence with another, as behold and cold. a. A poem or verse employing such…
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Full text Article rhyme

From Shakespeare's Theatre: A Dictionary of His Stage Context
Shakespeare’s use of rhymed couplets seems to decline from his early plays, as Edmond Malone noted in his Attempt to Ascertain the Order in which the Plays of Shakespeare were Written. Love’s Labour’s has 62 per cent of rhymed pentameter; Richard II has 19 per cent. One recurrent use of rhyme by…
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Full text Article CROSS RHYME

From The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms
(Ger. Kreuzreim , überschlagender Reim ; Fr. rime brisée , rime croisée) . Also known as envelope rhyme or enclosed rhyme, cross rhyme is now commonly used to refer to the abab pattern of end words in a quatrain (Perloff, Scott, Adams). But as Schipper has pointed out, when two long lines of a…
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Full text Article EYE RHYME

From The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms
(sight rhyme, visual rhyme). Two or more words that seem to rhyme visually, in that their spelling is nearly identical (they begin differently but end alike), but in pronunciation do not. Example: rough/cough/through/though/plough. Eye rhymes must be discriminated with care, for, although their…
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