Types of rhyme and rhyme schemes, without the homework

You write night and reach for light. Easy. Then life turns up: close enough to catch the ear, not quite the same sound. Someone draws ABAB in the margin and suddenly the poem looks like homework.

There are two different questions here. A type of rhyme tells us how sounds match, or where the match sits. A rhyme scheme tells us which lines share an ending sound. In a scheme, A stands for one sound family, B for another. The letters aren’t grades. This is the convention used in the Academy of American Poets’ glossary.

There is no final list of every possible scheme: the letters can be combined almost endlessly, and traditions have their own forms. Here are the useful basics and eleven patterns worth recognizing.

What kind of rhyme are you hearing?

In a perfect rhyme, sounds match from the last stressed vowel onward: night / light. A slant or near rhyme sounds similar but not identical: night / life. Spelling is a poor referee; pronunciation matters, and it can vary by language and accent. The Academy explains the distinction.

One study of imperfect rhyme had listeners judge German word pairs and metered couplets. Sound similarity and the verse around the words mattered to what they heard as a rhyme. The study wasn’t about Rhyma, nor a ruling on which poems are “correct.” It simply shows why ears don’t behave like a spelling checker.

End rhyme lands at the ends of lines. Internal rhyme happens inside a line, or between its middle and end. Position and exactness are separate: an internal rhyme can be imperfect, too. Eye rhyme looks alike in print but sounds different; English through / rough is a familiar example in the Poetry Foundation glossary.

Assonance echoes vowels; consonance echoes consonants. Both can make a line sound connected without making a full rhyme. Another distinction concerns the final stress. A masculine rhyme ends on a stressed syllable (night / light); a feminine rhyme continues through an unstressed one (flower / power, in pronunciations that give both two syllables). In Ukrainian prosody you may also meet dactylic rhyme, with the stress on the third syllable from the end. These are old technical labels for sound patterns, not for people; the stress system and examples don’t transfer neatly between languages.

Ukrainian scholars also classify rhymes by the number of words involved, parts of speech, and how far the matching sound extends. That yields labels such as compound, verb, rich and poor rhyme. A study of Ukrainian rhyme terminology notes that even specialists disagree on what “rich” or “full” means. Useful descriptions, then, not a multiplication table.

How to read the letters

Look at the line endings. If lines one and three rhyme, they both get A. If two and four share a different sound, they get B. That makes ABAB. Matching letters and highlights pick out the line endings in real poems below. Each quotation has an author and a link to its source. Where a form is clearer in another language, we keep the original: translating the words would change the rhyme. Longer examples can be expanded.

One rhyme all the way: AAAA

All four lines return to one ending sound. That’s monorhyme. Drawing it is easy; keeping it from sounding like a rhyming dictionary is harder.

AAA Quoted verse

1. AHe clasps the crag with crooked hands;
2. AClose to the sun in lonely lands,
3. ARing'd with the azure world, he stands.

This excerpt has three lines: AAA. Monorhyme can continue for more lines.

Pairs: AABB

Line one rhymes with two, and three with four. Two small exchanges, one after the other. This is the couplet pattern.

AABB Quoted verse

1. AI was angry with my friend.
2. AI told my wrath, my wrath did end.
3. BI was angry with my foe.
4. BI told it not, my wrath did grow;

Alternating: ABAB

The first line waits for the third; the second answers in the fourth. This pattern keeps the stanza moving before either sound settles.

ABAB Quoted verse

1. AShall I compare thee to a summer's day?
2. BThou art more lovely and more temperate.
3. ARough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4. BAnd summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Temperate / date is a historical rhyme; the endings do not fully match in usual modern pronunciation.

Enclosed: ABBA

The outer lines rhyme, and the two middle lines rhyme. Think of closing a pair of brackets.

ABBA Quoted verse

1. AWhen I consider how my light is spent
2. BEre half my days, in this dark world and wide.
3. BAnd that one talent which is death to hide,
4. ALodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

Only the even lines: ABCB

A and C are different endings that don’t return in this stanza. Only the two B lines rhyme. This loose quatrain is often associated with the English-language ballad. The Academy notes that ballads may rhyme the second and fourth lines, or all alternating lines.

ABCB Quoted verse

1. AIt is an ancient Mariner,
2. BAnd he stoppeth one of three.
3. C"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
4. BNow wherefore stopp'st thou me?

Three returns and a detour: AABA

Lines one, two and four return to A; the third takes a brief turn to B. Poetry Foundation lists AABA among the many possible quatrain patterns. It isn’t the exclusive property of one form.

AABA Quoted verse

1. AAwake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
2. AHas flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
3. BAnd Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
4. AThe Sultán's Turret in a Noose of Light.

The same quatrain guide also gives AABB, ABAB, ABBA and ABCB. A scheme records the order of end rhymes. It doesn’t tell you the line length, beat or subject.

When a pattern belongs to a form

Limerick: AABBA

Five lines: the first two and last share A, with a shorter B pair in the middle. But five letters alone don’t make a limerick. Its springy rhythm and often comic or nonsensical story matter too. The Academy sets out the form.

AABBA Quoted verse

1. AThere was an Old Man with a beard,
2. AWho sat on a horse when he reared;
3. BBut they said, "Never mind!
4. BYou will fall off behind,
5. AYou propitious Old Man with a beard!"

Terza rima: ABA BCB CDC…

The middle rhyme of one tercet becomes the outside rhyme of the next. B opens the second group; C opens the third. The chain can keep going. That’s the heart of terza rima. The example shows three links, not a required ending.

ABA BCB CDC Italian original

1. ANel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
2. Bmi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
3. Aché la diritta via era smarrita.
4. BAhi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
5. Cesta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
6. Bche nel pensier rinova la paura!

Read the remaining lines

1. CTant’è amara che poco è più morte;
2. Dma per trattar del ben ch’i’ vi trovai,
3. Cdirò de l’altre cose ch’i’ v’ ho scorte.

Three ways to arrange a sonnet

A traditional sonnet has fourteen lines, but counting won’t tell you which kind you’re reading. The Shakespearean pattern has three quatrains and a closing couplet: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The last two lines may gather the thought or turn it around.

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG Quoted verse

1. AShall I compare thee to a summer's day?
2. BThou art more lovely and more temperate.
3. ARough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4. BAnd summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Read the remaining lines

1. CSometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
2. DAnd often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
3. CAnd every fair from fair sometime declines,
4. DBy chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
5. EBut thy eternal summer shall not fade
6. FNor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
7. ENor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
8. FWhen in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
9. GSo long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
10. GSo long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Temperate / date is a historical rhyme; the endings do not fully match in usual modern pronunciation.

The Petrarchan sonnet starts with ABBA ABBA. Its last six lines vary; CDE CDE is one option. A turn in thought often comes between lines eight and nine.

ABBA ABBA CDE CDE Quoted verse

1. AWhen I consider how my light is spent
2. BEre half my days, in this dark world and wide.
3. BAnd that one talent which is death to hide,
4. ALodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

Read the remaining lines

1. ATo serve therewith my Maker, and present
2. BMy true account, lest He, returning, chide;
3. BDoth God exact day-labour, light denied?
4. AI fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent
5. CThat murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
6. DEither man's work, or His own gifts; who best
7. EBear His mild yoke, they serve Him best; His state
8. CIs kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,
9. DAnd post o'er land and ocean without rest;
10. EThey also serve who only stand and wait.

In the Spenserian version, the quatrains link: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE. The previous stanza’s rhyme doesn’t let go so quickly. All three conventional patterns, and their variations, appear in the Academy’s sonnet guide.

ABAB BCBC CDCD EE Quoted verse

1. AOne day I wrote her name upon the strand,
2. BBut came the waves and washed it away:
3. AAgain I wrote it with a second hand,
4. BBut came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

Read the remaining lines

1. B"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,
2. CA mortal thing so to immortalize;
3. BFor I myself shall like to this decay,
4. CAnd eke my name be wiped out likewise."
5. C"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise
6. DTo die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
7. CMy verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
8. DAnd in the heavens write your glorious name:
9. EWhere whenas death shall all the world subdue,
10. EOur love shall live, and later life renew."

There are also villanelles, ghazals, rondeaux and triolets, some with repeated whole lines as well as repeated sounds. These eleven examples are an entrance map, not a census of every way to write a poem.

Now put the ruler down

You have learned AABB, ABAB and ABBA, survived terza rima, and may be planning a Spenserian sonnet in your head. In Rhyma, that preparation meets one small snag: when it’s your turn, you see only the preceding line. The whole poem appears after it’s finished.

You can rhyme with the line you see. You can’t reliably keep an ABAB pattern agreed on three turns ago: the A you need may be behind the curtain. This is a shared poem, not a prosody exam. Give your line to chance and to whoever comes next. They get one clue, too. Try Rhyma on Google Play.

If you’d rather steer every stanza together, see other ways to write poetry online and seven collaborative poetry games.

Sources

• Academy of American Poets: rhyme and poetic terms
• Poetry Foundation: rhyme and quatrain patterns
• Knoop and colleagues: perception of imperfect rhymes in German verse
• Ukrainian literature textbook: couplet, alternate and enclosed patterns
• Study of Ukrainian rhyme terms and disputed definitions
• Academy of American Poets: limerick, terza rima and sonnet