rhyme

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: rīm, IPA^(key): /ɹaɪm/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Homophone: rime
• Rhymes: -aɪm

From Middle English rim, rime, ryme (“identical letters or sounds in words from the vowel in their stressed syllables to their ends; measure, meter, rhythm; song, verse, etc., with rhyming lines”),^[1] from Anglo-Norman rime, ryme (“identical letters or sounds in words from the vowel in their stressed syllables to their ends; song, verse, etc., with rhyming lines”) (modern French rime); further etymology uncertain, possibly either:^[2]

• from Latin rhythmus (“rhythm”), from Ancient Greek ῥῠθμός (rhuthmós, “measured motion, rhythm; regular, repeating motion, vibration”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *srew- (“to flow; a stream”); or
• borrowed from Frankish *rīm (“number, order, sequence, series, row of identical things”) (whence Old English rīm (“number, enumeration, series”)), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂rey- (“to arrange; to count”) and *h₂er- (“to fit, put together; to fix; to slot”).

rhyme (countable and uncountable, plural rhymes)

1. (countable, uncountable) Rhyming verse (poetic form)

   Many editors say they don’t want stories written in rhyme these days.

   • 1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act II], signature [D4], recto:

     Libels are caſt againſt thee in the ſtreete, / Ballads and rimes made of thy ouerthrovv.

   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], signature A2, verso:

     Thou, thou, Lyſander, thou haſt giuen her rimes, / And interchang'd loue tokens vvith my childe: […]

   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 106”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC, signature G3, recto:

     VVhen in the Chronicle of vvaſted time, / I ſee diſcriptions of the faireſt vvights, / And beautie making beautifull old rime, / In praiſe of Ladies dead, and louely Knights, […]

   • a. 1631 (date written), J[ohn] Donne, “The Triple Foole”, in Poems, […] with Elegies on the Authors Death, London: […] M[iles] F[lesher] for Iohn Marriot, […], published 1633, →OCLC, page 204:

     I thought, if I could dravv my paines, / Through Rimes vexation, I ſhould them allay, / Griefe brought to numbers cannot be ſo fierce, / For, he tames it, that fetters it in verſe.

2. A thought expressed in verse; a verse; a poem; a tale told in verse.

   Tennyson’s rhymes

3. (countable) A word that rhymes with another.

   Norse poetry is littered with rhymes like “sól … sunnan”.

   Rap makes use of rhymes such as “money … honey” and “nope … dope”.

   1. (countable, in particular) A word that rhymes with another, in that it is pronounced identically with the other word from the vowel in its stressed syllable to the end.

      "Awake" is a rhyme for "lake".

4. (uncountable) Rhyming: sameness of letters or sounds of part of some words.

   The poem exhibits a peculiar form of rhyme.

   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, Much Adoe about Nothing. […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii], signature I, verso:

     [M]ary I cannot ſhevv it in rime, I haue tried, I can finde out no rime to Ladie, but babie, an innocent rime: for ſcorne, horne, a hard rime: for ſchoole foole, a babling rime: very ominous endings, no, I vvas not borne vnder a riming plannet, nor i cannot vvooe in feſtiuall termes: […]

   • 1651, Thomas Hobbes, “Of the Consequence or Trayne of Imaginations”, in Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, London: […] [William Wilson] for Andrew Crooke, […], →OCLC, 1st part (Of Man), page 10:

     Sometimes a man knovvs a place determinate, vvithin the compaſſe vvhereof he is to ſeek: […] as a man ſhould run over the Alphabet, to ſtart a rime.

   • 1878, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Précy and the Marionettes”, in An Inland Voyage, London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co., […], →OCLC, page 232:

     [S]hould not all the world delight to honour this unfortunate and loyal follower of the Muses? May Apollo send him rimes hitherto undreamed of; […]

6. (linguistics) The second part of a syllable, from the vowel on, as opposed to the onset.

   Coordinate term: onset

   Meronyms: nucleus, coda

7. (informal, African-American Vernacular, hip hop) An instance of rapping; a rapped verse; a line or couple lines of rapping; a hip hop song.

   I heard Drake's new rhyme last night.

8. (informal, by extension, African-American Vernacular, hip hop, always plural) A rapper's ouevre, lyricism or skill.

   His rhymes are all weak.

9. (obsolete) Number.

• rime (archaic)
• rhime (obsolete)

• stave-rhyme, end rhyme
• internal rhyme, cross rhyme
• half rhyme, near rhyme:
  • pararhyme, slant rhyme
• full rhyme, perfect rhyme, exact rhyme, true rhyme

From Middle English rimen, rymen, rim, rime (“to recite or write verse; to sing songs; to tell a story in verse; to fit into verse; (figurative) to agree, make sense”),^[3] from Anglo-Norman rimer, Middle French rimer, and Old French rimer (“to rhyme (a word) with another word; to write verse”) (modern French rimer), Old French rime, ryme (noun): see etymology 1.^[4]

rhyme (third-person singular simple present rhymes, present participle rhyming, simple past and past participle rhymed)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To compose or treat in verse; versify.
   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 125, column 2:

     Ha, ha, hovv vildely doth this Cynicke rime?

   • 1653, Francis Rabelais [i.e., François Rabelais], translated by [Thomas Urquhart] and [Peter Anthony Motteux], chapter XLVII, in The Works of Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick: Containing Five Books of the Lives, Heroick Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua, and His Sonne Pantagruel. […], London: […] [Thomas Ratcliffe and Edward Mottershead] for Richard Baddeley, […], →OCLC; republished in volume II, London: […] Navarre Society […], [1948], →OCLC, book the fifth, page 418:

     How Panurge and the rest rim'd with Poetick Fury [chapter title]

   • 1742, [Alexander Pope], “Book the Fourth”, in The New Dunciad: As is^[sic] It was Found in the Year 1741. […], Dublin: […] George Faulkner, →OCLC, lines 101-102:

     There marched the bard and blockhead, side by side, / Who rhymed for hire, and patronized for pride.

   • 1936 July, John Buchan, “Sanctuary”, in The Island of Sheep, London: Hodder and Stoughton, published July 1938, →OCLC, part II (Laverlaw), pages 152–153:

     “He was aye rimin’,” said Miss Newbigging, “about this bonny countryside and the dacent folk that bode in it.”

2. (intransitive, followed by with) Of a word, to be pronounced identically with another from the vowel in its stressed syllable to the end.

   Creation rhymes with integration and station.

3. (reciprocal) Of two or more words, to be pronounced identically from the vowel in the stressed syllable of each to the end of each.

   Mug and rug rhyme.

   India and windier rhyme with each other in non-rhotic accents.

   I rewrote the story to make it rhyme.

4. (intransitive, figurative, followed by with) To somewhat resemble or correspond with.
   • 2010, Tony Pipolo, Robert Bresson: A Passion for Film:

     In addition, the look rhymes with but inverts the meaning of the first silent look he gets instead of words when he asks Lucien in the photo shop if he remembers him, and Lucien shrugs his shoulders in denial.

5. (transitive, obsolete) To number; count; reckon.

• rime (archaic)

•   rhyme on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “rhyme”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

• Hymer, Myhre

rhyme

1. Alternative form of reem
   • 1867, “SONG”, in SONGS, ETC. IN THE DIALECT OF FORTH AND BARGY, number 5, page 108:

     Duggès an kauddès coome lick up a rhyme,

     Dogs and cats came to lick up the cream.

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 64