Definition:
Identity or close similarity of sound between accented syllables. See also:
Examples and Observations:
- "Yes, the zebra is fine.
But I think it's a shame,
Such a marvelous beast
With a cart that's so tame.
The story would really be better to hear
If the driver I saw were a charioteer.
A gold and blue chariot's something to meet,
Rumbling like thunder down Mulberry Street!"
(Dr. Seuss, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street) - "Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow."
(Robert Frost, "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening") - "Hey, why don't I just go eat some hay, make things out of clay, lay by the bay? I just may! What do ya say?"
(Happy Gilmore, 1996) - "Deliberate rhyme in prose is amusing if the subject matter is light-hearted. Accidental rhyme seems careless, the product of a writer with a tin ear. In serious or grave material, rhyming word play in general seems inappropriate and at least undignified, if not repellant.
"Rewriting a passage that appears elsewhere in this book . . ., I tried, 'Technology may have freed us from conventional war, which in the past consumed the whole nation and annihilated an entire generation.' You'll see immediately what's wrong with that sentence: the unwitting rhyme of nation and generation. Deliberate rhyme for special effects can be pleasant; unwitting rhyme almost never is. Here the rhyme sets up an unintended poetic cadence--either nation or generation had to go. Nation was easier, and the rewrite finally read, 'Technology may have freed us from conventional war, which in the past consumed the whole country and annihilated an entire generation.'"
(Paula LaRocque, The Book on Writing, Marion Street, 2003)
Also Known As: rime
