There are many words in the English language which allegedly have no rhyme. I was wondering if there is a term to denote rhyme-less words (i.e. orange, silver...)?
The question was: is there a term to denote (that is to say, a noun) a rhyme-less word? I think it's fair to turn it around: is there a noun meaning "a word which has a rhyme?" I'm pretty sure the answer is no to both questions.
Anonymous, just what was your point? Was that supposed to be a list of words with no rhymes? The truth is, MOST words in the English language don't have rhymes. That makes the very discussion a bit trivial, doesn't it?
And to deez simith, the first consonant of the stressed syllable need not be the same for a word to rhyme. only the following consonants, etc. But, even if what you say were true, then by your own rules "cat" does still have a rhyme. "scat" would rhyme with "cat".
"Thing" rhyme with "thing"? In a way, of course, but does a a word RHYME with itself, or do we need different words with similar sounds to have a rhyme?
Sadly, "anything" doesn't rhyme with "nothing," at least if we restrict ourselves to masculine, feminine, and triple rhyme. The stress of "nothing" falls on the penultimate syllable, while the stress of "anything" falls everywhere but there.
since i have taken the test that proves if you are a genius or not.....and passed. i'd have to say that CAT is a rhymeless word. i mean really, what word rhymes with cat. definetely not that, hat,gnat, fat, or pat rhyme with cat because none have a "c" in them -duh! i'm too smart.
So hayley, are you saying that a word that rhymes with nothing is anything? everything? something?... What about a word for a word that rhymes with nothing?
I think JR and Joe got it without even trying: "rhymeless." That's one of the great things about English--if we need a word for something, our language has the tools to create that word. Do we really need a dictionary to tell us what to say?
Half rhyme, sometimes known as slant, sprung or near rhyme, and less commonly eye rhyme (a term covering a broader phenomenon), is consonance on the final consonants of the words involved. It is widely used in Irish, Welsh, and Icelandic verse. Some examples are ill and shell and also dropped and wept.
The first English poet to use half rhyme was Henry Vaughan, [citation needed] but it was not until it was used in the works of W. B. Yeats and Gerard Manley Hopkins that half rhyme became popular among English-language poets. In the 20th century half-rhyme has been used widely by English poets. Often, as in most of Yeats's poems, it is mixed with regular rhymes, assonance, para-rhymes etc.
When have I last looked on The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies Of the dark leopards of the moon? All the wild witches, those most noble ladies, (Yeats, "Lines written in Dejection")
In the February 1976 Word Ways, Maxey Brooke defines rhyme as "the identity in sound, of the accented vowels of words, usually the last one accented, and of all consonantal and vowel sounds following, with a difference in the sound of the consonants immediately preceding the accented vowels." Masculine rhymes have the final syllable accented, feminine rhymes have the penultimate syllable accented, and triple rhymes have the third-from-last syllable accented. Rhymes with the following consonants somewhat different are called vowel rhyme or assonance; rhymes with identical consonant sounds but slightly different vowel sounds are called off rhyme, sour rhyme, analyzed rhyme or consonance.
Refractory rhymes, or rhymeless words, involve the relatively unexplored area of word pronunciation (as opposed to word spelling). As such, they offer opportunities to distinguish true logology from mere word puzzling. For example, at least one recently-published word puzzle book states that there are two rhymeless words in English: ORANGE and SILVER. Actually, there are thousands of rhymeless English words, but Word Ways readers know of rhymes for ORANGE and SILVER.
Refractory rhymes are the subject of a chapter in Charles C. Bombaugh's Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature (Dover, 1961, reprint of 1890). In addition, several articles in Word Ways have discussed this subject:
* In February 1975, Ralph Beaman discussed historical references and classical refractory rhymes. Ralph cited several rhymes for these classical cases, including SPORANGE for ORANGE and CHILVER for SILVER, although many of the rhymes are mosaic (or multi-word) phrases. James Roberts (November 1975) challenged him to rhyme OBLIGE; Ralph obliged in February 1976 with phrases like ELIJAH KNEW / OBLIGE A JEW.
* In the November 1976 Poets' Corner, Milton Bass suggested rhymes for various pronuncia-tions of ORANGE.
* In the August 1980 Kickshaws, Howard Bergerson noted that there are probably many rhymeless words for feminine (and higher) rhymes. He opined that one-syllable rhymeless words are rarer, and listed 55. Jay Ames (May 1981) provided rhymes for TUFTS, LAIRDS, BEARDS and JINXES.
* In the August 1988 Poets' Corner, Kay Haugaard rhymed CIRCLE with JERK'LL.
asdasdsadasda
January 6, 2013, 2:48pm
orange: sporange
silver: chilver
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orange
October 4, 2012, 3:35pm
Refractory rhyme. This is the term used for rhymeless words.
Three years too-late. Don't know how you'd use it in a sentence.
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Carly
September 21, 2012, 8:57am
what about orange and spornge
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zachary
August 28, 2012, 9:19am
nothing, bluffing, stuffing,
oranges, porn gizz, foreign kids,
Silver, pillar, roto tiller,
Purple, circle, hurdle,
Pint, defiant, reliant,
months, dounce, once,
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Master
May 10, 2012, 12:38pm
Try this link: http://www.rhymer.com/
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nothing
December 15, 2011, 9:46am
print ryhmes with lint!
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lollol
July 9, 2010, 10:54am
nothing ryhmes with A
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kcirred23
March 22, 2010, 12:04am
"the sling" rhymes with "nothing"
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douglas.bryant
August 22, 2009, 6:44pm
The question was: is there a term to denote (that is to say, a noun) a rhyme-less word? I think it's fair to turn it around: is there a noun meaning "a word which has a rhyme?" I'm pretty sure the answer is no to both questions.
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anon
August 22, 2009, 5:23pm
Anonymous, just what was your point? Was that supposed to be a list of words with no rhymes? The truth is, MOST words in the English language don't have rhymes. That makes the very discussion a bit trivial, doesn't it?
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aero62
August 21, 2009, 6:07pm
purple, month, ninth, pint, wolf, opus, dangerous, marathon, orange, diamond, skeleton, limited, poem, nothing
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Anna (unregistered)
September 15, 2008, 9:12pm
Wilbur rhymes with silver
and orange rhymes with whore changed
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Anonymous (unregistered)
April 8, 2008, 11:31pm
andy warhol coke
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Keith (unregistered)
April 2, 2008, 1:50pm
Are these American dictionaries?
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Anonymous (unregistered)
April 1, 2008, 1:30pm
Really Keith? Not in any of my dictionaries. They're all the same.
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Keith (unregistered)
April 1, 2008, 12:16pm
None of those rhyme with "of" in English English. "of" is pronounced "ov" whereas all those words end in an "uv" sound.
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Lord Merriwether (unregistered)
March 19, 2008, 9:36am
Love
Shove
Above
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Anonymous (unregistered)
March 4, 2008, 1:06pm
Dove
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Keith (unregistered)
March 1, 2008, 2:44pm
What rhymes with "of"?
Words with more than one syllable that have no rhyme are two a penny.
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Anonymous (unregistered)
February 21, 2008, 6:20pm
just a tidbit...you can rhyme "orange" with "door hinge"....sorta.
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yagubluck (unregistered)
February 21, 2008, 9:11am
http://www.rhymezone.com/
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dionne3165
February 19, 2008, 1:47pm
what rhymes with Kieran??
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Cammi (unregistered)
February 18, 2008, 9:51am
What rhymes with Antartica?
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porsche
February 7, 2008, 8:24am
Lottie, "daily" rhymes with Hayley.
And to deez simith, the first consonant of the stressed syllable need not be the same for a word to rhyme. only the following consonants, etc. But, even if what you say were true, then by your own rules "cat" does still have a rhyme. "scat" would rhyme with "cat".
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Lottie (unregistered)
February 7, 2008, 3:34am
Im trying to write a limerick, but nothing rhymes with hayley!
And orange....
it's rather annoying
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dullard (unregistered)
August 1, 2007, 12:32pm
"Thing" rhyme with "thing"? In a way, of course, but does a a word RHYME with itself, or do we need different words with similar sounds to have a rhyme?
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mountain man (unregistered)
April 8, 2007, 3:56pm
wer we allz from, we just make up dem wurds soz day fits wat wez tryin to say, you all think too much.
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Jin-Ho (unregistered)
March 19, 2007, 8:17pm
Sadly, "anything" doesn't rhyme with "nothing," at least if we restrict ourselves to masculine, feminine, and triple rhyme. The stress of "nothing" falls on the penultimate syllable, while the stress of "anything" falls everywhere but there.
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dicok hampson (unregistered)
March 13, 2007, 7:21am
i am a fat racist :)
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deez simith (unregistered)
March 13, 2007, 7:20am
since i have taken the test that proves if you are a genius or not.....and passed. i'd have to say that CAT is a rhymeless word. i mean really, what word rhymes with cat. definetely not that, hat,gnat, fat, or pat rhyme with cat because none have a "c" in them -duh! i'm too smart.
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kierancharles
January 19, 2007, 2:59pm
dude weatherson doesnt rhyme with anything?!!? bruv sort it out!
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Nathan (unregistered)
December 3, 2006, 4:21pm
Orange
Door-hinge
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Anonymous (unregistered)
October 16, 2006, 3:15pm
So hayley, are you saying that a word that rhymes with nothing is anything? everything? something?... What about a word for a word that rhymes with nothing?
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Hayley (unregistered)
October 16, 2006, 1:28pm
NOTHING... surely anyTHING that ends in "thing" rhymes?
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porsche
September 27, 2006, 7:17pm
rhymeless is an adjective. It is NOT a noun that means "rhymeless word".
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Di (unregistered)
September 27, 2006, 5:11pm
I think JR and Joe got it without even trying: "rhymeless." That's one of the great things about English--if we need a word for something, our language has the tools to create that word. Do we really need a dictionary to tell us what to say?
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www.EverythingEvil2105
August 28, 2006, 4:17pm
isnt orange one of them?
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Anonymous (unregistered)
August 5, 2006, 11:13pm
rhymelessnessosity
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Karen (unregistered)
August 5, 2006, 4:00pm
I think people have missed JRs question. Is there a word that means "a word for which there is no rhyme".
I don't think that there is.
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brixen_ivy
July 2, 2006, 2:48pm
This reminds me of a poem I read once (not that it helps the discussion at all).
To find a rhyme for silver
Or any rhymeless rhyme
Requires only will, ver-
Bosity and time.
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lmj (unregistered)
June 23, 2006, 2:55am
This may help.
Half rhyme, sometimes known as slant, sprung or near rhyme, and less commonly eye rhyme (a term covering a broader phenomenon), is consonance on the final consonants of the words involved. It is widely used in Irish, Welsh, and Icelandic verse. Some examples are ill and shell and also dropped and wept.
The first English poet to use half rhyme was Henry Vaughan, [citation needed] but it was not until it was used in the works of W. B. Yeats and Gerard Manley Hopkins that half rhyme became popular among English-language poets. In the 20th century half-rhyme has been used widely by English poets. Often, as in most of Yeats's poems, it is mixed with regular rhymes, assonance, para-rhymes etc.
When have I last looked on
The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies
Of the dark leopards of the moon?
All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,
(Yeats, "Lines written in Dejection")
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Janet (unregistered)
June 21, 2006, 12:34pm
http://wordways.com/refracto.htm
REFRACTORY RHYME
by Chris Cole
Word Ways, 1990
In the February 1976 Word Ways, Maxey Brooke defines rhyme as "the identity in sound, of the accented vowels of words, usually the last one accented, and of all consonantal and vowel sounds following, with a difference in the sound of the consonants immediately preceding the accented vowels." Masculine rhymes have the final syllable accented, feminine rhymes have the penultimate syllable accented, and triple rhymes have the third-from-last syllable accented. Rhymes with the following consonants somewhat different are called vowel rhyme or assonance; rhymes with identical consonant sounds but slightly different vowel sounds are called off rhyme, sour rhyme, analyzed rhyme or consonance.
Refractory rhymes, or rhymeless words, involve the relatively unexplored area of word pronunciation (as opposed to word spelling). As such, they offer opportunities to distinguish true logology from mere word puzzling. For example, at least one recently-published word puzzle book states that there are two rhymeless words in English: ORANGE and SILVER. Actually, there are thousands of rhymeless English words, but Word Ways readers know of rhymes for ORANGE and SILVER.
Refractory rhymes are the subject of a chapter in Charles C. Bombaugh's Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature (Dover, 1961, reprint of 1890). In addition, several articles in Word Ways have discussed this subject:
* In February 1975, Ralph Beaman discussed historical references and classical refractory rhymes. Ralph cited several rhymes for these classical cases, including SPORANGE for ORANGE and CHILVER for SILVER, although many of the rhymes are mosaic (or multi-word) phrases. James Roberts (November 1975) challenged him to rhyme OBLIGE; Ralph obliged in February 1976 with phrases like ELIJAH KNEW / OBLIGE A JEW.
* In the November 1976 Poets' Corner, Milton Bass suggested rhymes for various pronuncia-tions of ORANGE.
* In the August 1980 Kickshaws, Howard Bergerson noted that there are probably many rhymeless words for feminine (and higher) rhymes. He opined that one-syllable rhymeless words are rarer, and listed 55. Jay Ames (May 1981) provided rhymes for TUFTS, LAIRDS, BEARDS and JINXES.
* In the August 1988 Poets' Corner, Kay Haugaard rhymed CIRCLE with JERK'LL.
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Soup (unregistered)
June 21, 2006, 12:25pm
Purple
Pint
Nothing
Orange
Silver
Month
Depends on your accent I s'pose...
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