English
What is a rhyme?
Quick answer
Words rhyme when their ending sounds match, like cat and hat, or light and bite. Rhymes depend on sound, not spelling.
In one sentence
Two words rhyme when they end with the same sound, like frog and log.
Explained
Say cat, hat, mat, sat. They all end with the same sound, -at. That shared ending is a rhyme. The beginning sound changes; the end stays the same.
What matters is the sound, not the spelling. Light, bite and height rhyme, although they are spelt three different ways. Cough and bough look as if they should rhyme, but they do not. For longer words, the rhyme starts at the last stressed vowel: table and able, funny and money.
Rhyme matters for young children because hearing it is an early phonological awareness skill. In phonics, a short word can be split into its first sound (the onset) and the rest (the rime): c-at, h-at, m-at. Children who can spot that pattern can read and spell many related words. See phonics.
In poems and songs, rhyme adds music and helps memory. Poets describe the pattern with a rhyme scheme, giving each new rhyme sound a letter:
- AABB (rhyming couplets): day / play / tree / see
- ABAB (alternate rhyme): night / sea / light / free
Not every poem rhymes. Free verse has no regular rhyme, and many great poems do without it. Poets also use near rhymes (or half rhymes) that almost match, like home / stone.
Rhyme can depend on accent. In some accents bath rhymes with path and math; in others it does not quite.
cat
hat
mat
frog
log
Examples
| Word | Rhymes |
|---|---|
| bee | tree, sea, key, me |
| cake | lake, snake, break |
| moon | spoon, soon, tune |
| bear | chair, where, hair |
| sing | ring, king, thing |
The cat in the hat sat down on the mat.
Common mistakes
- Judging by spelling. Bear rhymes with chair, not with ear.
- Matching only the last letter. Cat and cot both end in t but do not rhyme; the vowel sound differs.
- Forcing a rhyme that makes no sense. In writing, meaning comes first.
Quick quiz
Rhyme
Check what you know with 4 quick questions.
Question 1 of 4
Which word rhymes with cat?
Practise it
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Phonics worksheets with rhyming words
For grown-ups
Related topics
Syllables
A syllable is a beat in a word, built around one vowel sound. Cat has one syllable, rab-bit has two, el-e-phant has three.
Alliteration
Alliteration is when several words close together start with the same sound, like six silly snakes or big brown bear. It makes writing catchy and memorable.
Phonics
Phonics teaches children to read and spell by linking sounds (phonemes) with the letters that write them (graphemes), then blending and segmenting those sounds.
Homophones
Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and usually different spellings, like there, their and they're, or see and sea.
Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is a word that sounds like the noise it describes, such as buzz, splash, sizzle, bang or hiss.
Alphabet
The alphabet is the set of 26 letters we use to write English, from a to z, each with a name, a sound and a capital and lowercase shape.