rhyme
/ɹaɪm/ noun, verb
Forms rhymes rhyming rhymed rime rhime
- noun (countable, uncountable) Rhyming verse (poetic form). “Many editors say they don’t want stories written in rhyme these days.”
- noun A thought expressed in verse; a verse; a poem; a tale told in verse. “Tennyson’s rhymes”
- noun (countable) A word that rhymes with another. “Norse poetry is littered with rhymes like “sól … sunnan”.”
- noun (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".”
- noun (uncountable) Rhyming: sameness of letters or sounds of part of some words. “The poem exhibits a peculiar form of rhyme.”
- noun (linguistics) The second part of a syllable, from the vowel on, as opposed to the onset.
- noun (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.”
- noun (informal, by extension, African-American Vernacular, hip hop, always plural) A rapper's oeuvre, lyricism or skill. “His rhymes are all weak.”
- verb (ambitransitive) To compose or treat in verse; versify.
- verb (transitive) To place (a word or words) in such a way as to produce a rhyme or an approximation thereof.
- verb (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.”
- verb (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.”
- verb (intransitive, of an utterance, text, etc.) To contain words that are pronounced identically to each other from the vowel in the stressed syllable to the end. “I rewrote the story to make it rhyme.”
- verb (intransitive, figurative, followed by with) To somewhat resemble or correspond with.
- verb (transitive, obsolete) To number; count; reckon.
Synonyms
Etymology
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”), 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:
* from Latin rhythmus (“rhythm”), from Ancient Greek ῥῠθμός (rhŭthmós, “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”).
* Ancient Greek ἀριθμός (arithmós, “number”)
* Dutch rijm (“rhyme”)
* Middle Low German rīm (“rhyme”)
* Old Frisian rīm (“number, amount, tale”)
* Old High German rīm (“series, row, number”) (modern German Reim (“rhyme”))
* Old Irish rīm (“number”)
* Old Norse rím (“calculation, calendar”) (Icelandic rím (“rhyme”), Norwegian rim (“rhyme”), Swedish rim (“rhyme”))
* Welsh rhif (“number”)
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”), 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.
* Middle Dutch rīmen (modern Dutch rijmen)
* Middle High German rīmen (modern German reimen)
* Middle Low German rīmen
* Old Danish rime (modern Danish rime)
* Old Occitan rimar (“to rhyme (a word) with another word; to write verse”)
* Old Swedish rima (modern Swedish rima)
Webster’s 1913
- noun An expression of thought in numbers, measure, or verse; a composition in verse; a rhymed tale; poetry; harmony of language.
- noun Correspondence of sound in the terminating words or syllables of two or more verses, one succeeding another immediately or at no great distance. The words or syllables so used must not begin with the same consonant, or if one begins with a vowel the other must begin with a consonant. The vowel sounds and accents must be the same, as also the sounds of the final consonants if there be any. For rhyme with reason may dispense, And sound has right to govern sense. Prior.
- verb To make rhymes, or verses. "Thou shalt no longer ryme." Chaucer.
- verb To accord in rhyme or sound.
Etymology [OE. ryme, rime, AS. rim number; akin to OHG. rim number, succession, series, G. reim rhyme. The modern sense is due to the influence of F. rime, which is of German origin, and originally the same word.]
Etymology [OE. rimen, rymen, AS. riman to count: cf. F. rimer to rhyme. See Rhyme, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “rhyme”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details