Other forms: rhymes, rhyming, rhymed
A rhyme is the matching end-sound of two words, as in cat and hat. A perfect rhyme, rhyming couplets, does not rhyme.
Rhyme is about sound rather than spelling, which is why cough and bough do not rhyme and though and slow do. Half rhyme or slant rhyme is a near match. A rhyme is also a short poem for children — a nursery rhyme. Note rhyme scheme, written as ABAB; without rhyme or reason, meaning with no logic at all; and that rhyme and rhythm are different things constantly confused.
1nounrhymeThe matching end-sound of words.
“The rhyme only works if you say it in a Yorkshire accent.”
2verbmatchingTo have a matching end-sound.
“Almost nothing rhymes with orange, which everybody points out.”
rhyme is a matching of sounds.
The word comes from Old French rime, from a Latin borrowing of Greek rhythmos. It was long spelled rime in English, and the h was inserted in the seventeenth century by writers who wanted it to look more like rhythm.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂er-
Anglo-Norman
rime
Middle English
rim
English, today
rhyme
Built from
From Middle English rim, rime, ryme (“identical letters or sounds in words from the vowel in their stressed syllables to their ends; measure, meter, rhythm; song, verse, etc., with rhyming lines”), from Anglo-Norman rime, ryme (“identical letters or sounds in words from the vowel in their stressed syllables to their ends; song, verse, etc., with rhyming lines”) (modern French rime); further etymology uncertain, possibly either:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA