Perfect rhyme
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A perfect rhyme — also called a full rhyme, exact rhyme,[1] or true rhyme — is when the later part of the word or phrase is identical sounding to another.[2]
The following conditions are required for a rhyme to be perfect:[3][4]
- The vowel sound in both words must be identical. — e.g. "sky" and high"
- The articulation that precedes the vowel sound must differ. The letter h is not considered to be a distinct articulation for this purpose. So "hear" and "ear" are improper rhymes, as are "leave" and "believe", whereas "green" and "spleen" are perfect rhymes.
- Both words must have the same stresses. So "try" and "country" are improper rhymes, whereas the former is a perfect rhyme with "sigh".
Word pairs that satisfy the first and third conditions but not the second (such as the aforementioned "leave" and "believe") are technically identities (also known as identical rhymes or identicals).[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Glossary of Poetic Terms from BOB'S BYWAY, Letter E
- ^ perfect rhyme. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000
- ^ Alexander Bain (1867). English Composition and Rhetoric. New York: D. Appleton and company. pp. 290.
- ^ a b Sheila Davis (1984). The Craft of Lyric Writing. Writer's Digest Books. pp. 185. ISBN 0898791499.
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