Perfect rhyme—also called full rhyme, exact rhyme, or true rhyme—is a form of rhyme between two words or phrases, satisfying the following conditions: *The stressed vowel sound in both words must be identical, as well as any subsequent sounds. For example, the words "trouble" and "bubble" (from Shakespeare's Macbeth) form a perfect rhyme. *The

onset Onset may refer to: *Onset (audio), the beginning of a musical note or sound *Onset, Massachusetts Onset is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Wareham, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 1,573 at the 2010 census. Geog ...

of the stressed syllable in the words must differ. For example, "bean" and "green" is a perfect rhyme, while "leave" and "believe" is not. Word pairs that satisfy the first condition but not the second (such as the aforementioned "leave" and "believe") are technically identities (also known as identical rhymes or identicals).

Homophones A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same (to varying extent) as another word but differs in meaning. A ''homophone'' may also differ in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (pa ...

, being words of different meaning but identical pronunciation, are an example of identical rhyme.

Imperfect rhyme

Half rhyme or imperfect rhyme, sometimes called near-rhyme, lazy rhyme, or slant rhyme, is a type of rhyme formed by words with similar but not identical sounds. In most instances, either the vowel segments are different while the consonants are identical, or vice versa. This type of rhyme is also called approximate rhyme, inexact rhyme, imperfect rhyme (in contrast to perfect rhyme), off rhyme, analyzed rhyme, suspended rhyme, or sprung rhyme.

Use in popular music

Rock and punk

In the 1977 song "

God Save the Queen "God Save the King" is the national and/or royal anthem of the United Kingdom, most of the Commonwealth realms, their territories, and the British Crown Dependencies. The author of the tune is unknown and it may originate in plainchant, bu ...

" by the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

punk rock band the Sex Pistols, the authors create a rhyme with the lines "God save the

queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

" and "the fascist regime".

Hip hop and rap

Half rhyme is often used, along with

assonance Assonance is a resemblance in the sounds of words/syllables either between their vowels (e.g., ''meat, bean'') or between their consonants (e.g., ''keep, cape''). However, assonance between consonants is generally called ''consonance'' in America ...

, in rap music. This can be used to avoid rhyming clichés (e.g., rhyming "knowledge" with "college") or obvious rhymes, and gives the writer greater freedom and flexibility in forming lines of verse. Additionally, some words have no perfect rhyme in English, necessitating the use of slant rhyme. The use of half rhyme may also enable the construction of longer multisyllabic rhymes than otherwise possible. In the following lines from the song " N.Y. State of Mind" by rapper Nas, the author uses half rhyme in a complex cross rhyme pattern:

And be prosperous, though we live ''dangerous'' Cops could just arrest me, ''blamin' us'', we're held like hostages

Unconventional exceptions

Children's nursery rhyme This Little Piggy displays an unconventional case of slant rhyme. "Home" is rhymed with "none".

This little piggy stayed (at) home...this little piggy had none.

The Hives The Hives are a Swedish rock band that rose to prominence in the early 2000s during the garage rock revival. Their mainstream success came with the release of the album '' Veni Vidi Vicious'', containing the single "Hate to Say I Told You So". ...

's song " Dead Quote Olympics", singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist rhymes "idea" with "library":Archived a
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Wayback Machine

This time you really got something, it's such a clever idea But it doesn't mean it's good because you found it at the libra-ri-a

The

Chuck Berry Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the " Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into th ...

song " Let It Rock" (1960) rhymes "Alabama" with "hammer":

In the heat of the day down in Mobile, Alabama Workin' on the railroad with a steel drivin' hamma

Bibliography

* Smith, M., Joshi, A. (2020). Rhymes in the Flow: How Rappers Flip the Beat. United States: University of Michigan Press. * The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms: Third Edition. (2016). United States: Princeton University Press. * Lasser, M. (2019). City Songs and American Life, 1900-1950. United Kingdom: University of Rochester Press. *Barnes, W. (1854). A Philological Grammar: Grounded Upon English, and Formed from a Comparison of More Than Sixty Languages. Being an Introduction to the Science of Grammar and a Help to Grammars of All Languages, Especially English, Latin and Greek. United Kingdom: J. R. Smith. *Stoker, J. (2015). Slant Rhyme. United Kingdom: Xlibris US.

References

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