types of rhymes

Beginning rhyme

Very rare, but occurs when the rhyme is within the first few syllables of the lines

Broken rhyme

Breaking a word at the end of the line to preserve the rhyme

Compound rhyme

Rhyme between primary and secondary stressed syllables. Examples: "childhood" and "wildwood", "wear rags" and "bear bags"

Cross-Compound rhyme

Rhyme between the first syllable of one word and the second syllable of another, and vice versa. Examples: "meathead" and "deadbeat", "jughead" and "bedbug"

End rhyme

Rhyme that occurs at the end of a line in verse; extremely common

Internal rhyme

Rhyme that takes place within a line of verse

Eye rhyme

A rhyme between words in spelling but not in pronunciation; usually accompanied by consonance (e.g. love and move)

Feminine/Double/Falling rhyme

Rhyming of a stressed syllable followed by an identical unstressed syllable (e.g. swallow and follow)

Masculine rhyme

A rhyme that falls on the stressed, final syllable of the line (e.g. frank and bank)

Half/Near/Slant/Oblique rhyme

Imperfect rhyme, usually accompanied by consonance

Identical/Redundant rhyme

Rhyming words with the same sounds, but different meanings (e.g. bear and bare)

Interlocking rhyme

Rhyme pattern in which one line's rhyme carries into the next stanza

Leonine rhyme

A form of internal rhyme in which the last syllable preceding the caesura rhymes with the final syllable in the line

Heteronomous/Mosaic rhyme

A rare kind of multiple rhyme in which typically one multisyllabic word is forced to rhyme with two or more words.

Macaronic rhyme

A rhyme of two words of different languages

Echo rhyme

Repetition of the end of a line or stanza, imitating an echo

Crossed rhyme

A term applied to couplets, usually hexameter or longer, in which the words preceding the ceasura rhyme; such a couplet tends to break into four short lines with an abab pattern. Example: "Thou has conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath; / We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death."

Triple rhyme

Rhyme in which the rhyming stressed syllable is followed by two unstressed, undifferentiated syllables as in "meticulous" and "ridiculous"

Analyzed rhyme

A complex form of rhyme that involves breaking down or analyzing components. It is an interlocked combination of two or more types of rhyme- usually consonance and assonance- although true rhyme sometimes appears.

Apocopated rhyme

Rhyme in which the final stressed syllable of a word is rhymed with the stressed syllable of a word ending in a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Examples: "trap" and "happen", "ease" and "treason"

Chain rhyme

Uncommon in English, this device incorporates elements of Echo and Identical rhyme so that the sound of the last syllable of one line recurs as the sound of the first syllable but with a changing meaning. Examples: "weight" and "wait", "despair" and "spare"

Fused rhyme

A curious phenomenon, scarcely found anywhere in English outside a few poems by Gerald Manley Hopkins, in which a rhyme sound is begun at the end of a line but not completed until the beginning of the next

Assonance

Same or similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end in different consonant sounds; repetition of a vowel sound in close proximity; patterning of vowel sounds without regard to consonants

Consonance

the relation between words where the final consonants of stressed syllables agree but the vowels that precede them are different; repetition of a consonant sound in close proximity