---
title: "Types of rhyme and rhyme schemes with examples | Rhyma"
description: "Perfect and slant rhyme, AABB, ABAB and eleven common rhyme schemes, explained with annotated examples from real poems."
image: "https://www.rhyma.app/articles/rhyme-types-and-schemes/rhyme-types-and-schemes-og.webp"
---

Panduan28 September 2026

# Types of rhyme and rhyme schemes, without the homework

Perfect and slant rhyme, AABB, ABAB and eleven common rhyme schemes, explained with annotated examples from real poems.

![Hand-drawn verse lines with loose green and yellow paths showing how rhyme sounds can echo](/articles/rhyme-types-and-schemes/rhyme-types-and-schemes-cover.svg)

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](https://poets.org/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](https://poets.org/glossary/rhyme).

One [study of imperfect rhyme](https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000277) 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](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/rhyme).

**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](https://lingvostud.vnu.edu.ua/index.php/lingvostud/article/view/51/37) 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.  He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
2.  Close to the sun in lonely lands,
3.  Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

Alfred Tennyson · [The Eagle](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Eagle_\(Tennyson\))

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

William Blake · [A Poison Tree](https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/poison-tree)

### 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.  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
2.  Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
3.  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4.  And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

William Shakespeare · [Sonnet 18, 1–4](https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/sonnet-xviii-shall-i-compare-thee-summers-day)

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

John Milton · [On His Blindness, 1–4](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems_That_Every_Child_Should_Know/On_His_Blindness)

### 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](https://poets.org/glossary/ballad) that ballads may rhyme the second and fourth lines, or all alternating lines.

ABCB Quoted verse

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

Samuel Taylor Coleridge · [The Rime of the Ancient Mariner](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/151/151-h/151-h.htm)

### 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](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/quatrain) among the many possible quatrain patterns. It isn’t the exclusive property of one form.

AABA Quoted verse

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

Edward FitzGerald · [Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859), I](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam_\(tr._Fitzgerald,_1st_edition\)/The_Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam)

The [same quatrain guide](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/quatrain) 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](https://poets.org/glossary/limerick).

AABBA Quoted verse

1.  There was an Old Man with a beard,
2.  Who sat on a horse when he reared;
3.  But they said, "Never mind!
4.  You will fall off behind,
5.  You propitious Old Man with a beard!"

Edward Lear · [There was an Old Man with a beard (2)](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Nonsense/There_was_an_Old_Man_with_a_beard_\(2\))

### 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](https://poets.org/glossary/terza-rima). The example shows three links, not a required ending.

ABA BCB CDC Italian original

1.  Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
2.  mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
3.  ché la diritta via era smarrita.
4.  Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
5.  esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
6.  che nel pensier rinova la paura!

Read the remaining lines

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

Dante Alighieri · [Inferno, I, 1–9](https://it.wikisource.org/wiki/Divina_Commedia/Inferno/Canto_I)

### 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.  Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
2.  Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
3.  Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4.  And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Read the remaining lines

1.  Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
2.  And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
3.  And every fair from fair sometime declines,
4.  By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
5.  But thy eternal summer shall not fade
6.  Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
7.  Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
8.  When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
9.  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
10.  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare · [Sonnet 18](https://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/sonnet-xviii-shall-i-compare-thee-summers-day)

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

Read the remaining lines

1.  To serve therewith my Maker, and present
2.  My true account, lest He, returning, chide;
3.  Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
4.  I fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent
5.  That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
6.  Either man's work, or His own gifts; who best
7.  Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best; His state
8.  Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,
9.  And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
10.  They also serve who only stand and wait.

John Milton · [On His Blindness](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems_That_Every_Child_Should_Know/On_His_Blindness)

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](https://poets.org/glossary/sonnet).

ABAB BCBC CDCD EE Quoted verse

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

Read the remaining lines

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

Edmund Spenser · [Amoretti, LXXV](https://corevirtues.hillsdale.edu/poems/one-day-i-wrote-her-name)

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](/articles/ways-to-play-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](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.rhyma).

If you’d rather steer every stanza together, see [other ways to write poetry online](/articles/collaborative-poetry-online) and [seven collaborative poetry games](/articles/collaborative-poetry-games).

## Sources

*   [Academy of American Poets: rhyme and poetic terms](https://poets.org/glossary/rhyme)
*   [Poetry Foundation: rhyme and quatrain patterns](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/quatrain)
*   [Knoop and colleagues: perception of imperfect rhymes in German verse](https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000277)
*   [Ukrainian literature textbook: couplet, alternate and enclosed patterns](https://lib.iitta.gov.ua/id/eprint/731717/1/5%D0%BA%D0%BB_%D0%98%D0%BD%D1%82%D0%B5%D0%B3%D1%80_%D0%9B%D0%B8%D1%82-%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%A7%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0%20%D0%86.pdf)
*   [Study of Ukrainian rhyme terms and disputed definitions](https://lingvostud.vnu.edu.ua/index.php/lingvostud/article/view/51/37)
*   [Academy of American Poets: limerick, terza rima and sonnet](https://poets.org/glossary/sonnet)

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