Talk:List of English words without rhymes/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Monster/Mobster

Doesn't the word "mobster" rhyme with "monster?" Or is "mobster" considered slang? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.70.242.196 (talk) 21:17, 16 March 2007 (UTC).

Uh, no. 82.93.10.238 22:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC) Similarly, wouldn't ninja rhyme with Jah (the rastafari term for god)? Because Jah, is religious and not slang. I know it's a pronunciation of yahweh, a hebrew word, but then, isn't ninja also a foreign word?

Duck?!

Why is duck on this list? Does not duck rhyme with buck, cluck, f***, luck, muck, puck, suck, stuck, struck, tuck, truck, and yuck? And probably with a list that long, a whole lot of other things too? 68.251.149.101 16:31, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Just maybe

What about:

Mytle the Purple turtle did hurtle down the hill

?? 210.10.123.98 23:21, 14 March 2007 (UTC)


I believe that those are slant rhymes on purple.

74.32.63.250 01:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC) Some random dude

Wasp

If you are British, "wasp" rhymes with "clasp". --71.205.166.118 13:07, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed.

Maybe in some parts of Britain. I'm from Liverpool and to me those two words don't sound remotely similar.

I have never ever heard anyone pronounce those words the same. It is "wosp" and "clahsp" SGGH speak! 22:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Purple

Shouldn't cirle be listed as a half rhyme for purple? SGGH speak! 22:10, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Pint

I was blogging about rhymes for pint (http://www.dictionaryevangelist.com/2007/09/poets-rejoice-maybe.html) and came here to edit this page; not sure if I should link to my post as a reference, or if I should cite the OED's page for rynt as a source (seeing as how it's a subscription-only resource). Esperluette 23:43, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Different, Valve, and Luggage

Different rhymes with Coherent; Valve rhymes with Halve; Luggage rhymes with Baggage.

Am I wrong, or does the article really need some corrections in that field? :)

if 'different' rhymes with 'coherent' it rhymes with 'parent' too, so we must be careful of how subjective and/or fussy we are/aren't being. that said there are several more on that list that do actually rhyme with other words. oh and sign you name next time ;) Motorbyclist 11:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd be very interested to hear what sort of pronunciation you're using to get those words to rhyme. ;) Hengler 00:25, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

One of the main impediments to rhyming with Luggage etc, is the insistence on rhyming from the last stressed syllable, so you also need to match the 'ug' sound in luggage, not just the last syllable. It is a silly rule and thus probably a silly page, but that is the 'strict' definition of rhyme. maxsch 20:25, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary vs. Wikipedia?

I think the links should be links to Wiktionary and not Wikipedia. But that's just me. AkvoD3 17:34, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. maxsch 20:27, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I looked into doing this, and it is not that hard, almond does the trick. So I am wondering now, is it done? The content of this page has no relationship to the wikipedia article on almonds, so wiktionary seems to me to makes more sense. Would anyone object to changing the links to wiktionary links? maxsch 17:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

iron rhymes with siren

can anyone edit this for me? thanks (iron rhymes with siren) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.210.39.55 (talk) 19:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I think it's different: EYE-urn and SIGH-rehn. AkvoD3 14:11, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Rhythm

OK... Rhythm rhymes with, among other words "algorithm" and "logarithm". Empty rhymes with "kempty," meaning 'rough hair or wool' (random but true). In the article, it is mentioned that orange rhymes with "sporange," and purple with "curple" or "hirple."

So rhythm, empty, orange and purple have been removed from the list.

Red Tim 22:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)


Rhythm = hynm (like a song) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.197.197.16 (talk) 08:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

orange - lozenge?

Is this not a perfect rhyme? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.168.127.10 (talk) 19:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It is not. Nor is cringe or hinge a rhyme for orange. The stress is on the "o" in orange, so for a rhyme to be perfect it would have to start rhyming from there and 'lahz' doesn't rhyme with 'oar'. maxsch 22:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)


how bout seringe or la' range —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.197.197.16 (talk) 08:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Chocolate

What about 'percolate'? Does that fit as rhyming? Just wondering. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.201.44.249 (talk) 00:28, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


Some of the stuff on here

I'm not going to go into the main article to make edits (well actually maybe), but some of what people have said in the discussion is quite bizarre to me. Working down: in the English I speak, "citizen" does not rhyme with "men" because anything rhyming with "citizen" would have to end in "itizen" - the first syllable being the stressed one. "music" and "medic"? I wouldn't know where to start because I don't know how they could be thought to rhyme. "algorithm" and "logarithm" have the stress on the first syllable so do not rhyme with "rhythm". Never heard of "kempty".

"different" and "coherent" - can't see it at all. "valve" and "halve" - no. It's like "valv" and "hahv". I'm English by the way if this explains anything. "lugguage" and "baggage" - no. "mobster" and "monster" - what? "ninja" wouldn't rhyme with "Jah" anyway but would with "ginger". "olive" and "door hinge"? That's a joke. "soprano" and "piano" - no because it's prounounced "soprahno" and "piano". "postage" is like "poastage" whereas "hotage" isn't. "month" and millionth" - no because it's like "milli'nth". There's no "u" sound. Ands anyway the stress is on the first syllable so it's not even close.

And ones I haven't seen mentioned - I can't think of a rhyme for "of"? Anyone? Don't say "dove" or one of its rhymes! "ov" and "duv"! If you can have "twelfth" then why not "fifth" which is different from "fith"? "eighth". "tenth" and "length" maybe (which do not rhyme with each other). Also on the main page, why do "bachelor" and "spatula" only almost rhyme? "promise" and "Thomas" do not rhyme. There is an "i" sound in "promise" not found in "Thomas". Bejjer (talk) 21:34, 26 February 2008 (UTC)Bejjer

"length" and "strength" actually. Bejjer (talk) 21:46, 26 February 2008 (UTC)Bejjer

Chaos

Naos? 24.218.46.235 (talk) 02:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

One-syllable words

I was thinking about this list, and it's quite clear that it's no feat whatsoever for a word with more than one syllable to have no rhyme. If someone put any effort into it, this list could get ridiculously long. I would suggest that there should be a page for words with just one syllable that have no rhyme. It's far more "impressive". Just looking at what I've written here - what rhymes with "syllable", "someone", "effort", or "ridiculously"? Apparently there's "billable" and "meticulously" but you get the point. There would be thousands of words with more than one syllable with no rhyme. It's only impressive for a word with one syllable - "of" being the King of them all (unless you can find a rhyme for it). Bejjer (talk) 21:44, 27 February 2008 (UTC)Bejjer

I agree with you to a point, but this isn't a page about feats, it's a page that lists English words with no rhymes. I would not argue against separating the list into words with no one-syllable rhymes and words with no two or three-syllable rhymes. I don't think it matters much how long the words are, I think the interesting thing is how many of the syllables need rhyming, i.e. where is the stressed syllable. And, lastly, doesn't "love" rhyme with "of"? maxsch (talk) 20:25, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
"love" doesn't rhyme with "of" in English English. "luv" versus "ov". I tend to agree with you about the stressed syllable. I think it would be worth having a page for words with the last syllable as the stressed syllable that have no rhyme - not just because it's a "feat" but because one page for words with no rhymes would just be ridiculously long if someone put any effort into it.Bejjer (talk) 19:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Dialectal differences

It should be noted that a lot of the disputes mentioned below are due to different varieties of English. In my variety, that of North East England, /gulf/ and /wulf/ rhyme, whereas there is no rhyme between /luv/ and /ov/. I think people should be aware of this when editing, and perhaps it might be useful to specify the dialect being discussed. Also, it might be useful to reflect this on the main page as is done for 'of'. Panda (talk) 11:51, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Does Anything Rhyme with piano

The rhyme finder doesn't seem to think so. (Unless Indiana rhymes with piano)

Soprano rhymes with piano. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.192.237.142 (talk) 14:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Soprano, serrano, kanno, anno, etc. As the emphasis is on the 'a-no' full rymes do not require the 'i.' If the O is pronounced like a short a there are about a billion bajillion rhymes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.191.201.148 (talk) 18:04, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

plinth

synth as in synthsizer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.64.174 (talk) 05:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Of (has no rhyme in British English)?

...rhymes with POV. Annatto (talk) 00:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

How do they pronounce 'of' in British English? I'm guessing it isn't ovee as Annatto's comment seems to be suggesting. o_O --user.lain (talk) 19:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

words removed from the list because they actually do have rhymes

So please don't put these ones back, and if you take others out of the list, put them here so others can check and not be tempted to put in words that do have rhymes they just haven't thought of: Ones I've removed don't include two word rhymes like "door hinge" for "orange" (still dubious), rhymes with dialect or overly obscure words (pint with rynt), or slant rhymes like "siren" for "iron". This is just a list of words that actually have rhymes that once were erroneously in the list of words without. maxsch 03:40, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

  • science (rhymes with compliance)
  • dunce (rhymes with "once")
  • month (rhymes with "millionth")
  • crayon (rhymes with "rayon")
  • rhythm (rhymes with "algorithm" and "logarithm")
  • sculpt (rhymes with "gulped")maxsch 19:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
  • alterity (rhymes with "parity") maxsch (talk) 02:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
  • valve (rhymes with "salve") maxsch (talk) 00:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Also:
Um, sorry, cannabis does not rhyme with abacus, or even succubus. maxsch (talk) 18:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
Cannabis doesn't rhyme with abacus and I also don't agree that month rhymes with millionth or that valve rhymes with salve. --user.lain (talk) 19:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't "golf" rhyme with "wolf"? Seems that way to me. I'm somewhat new at this, so I didn't just want to change it. Marfotic (talk) 19:11, 25 June 2008 (UTC)Marfotic

I think this is another example of rhymes being different in different accents. Perhaps a note is in order. In American English the two words don't rhyme: golf has a vowel sound like the a in "tall" and wolf's is more like the u in "pull". But there may well be accents in which they rhyme. maxsch (talk) 08:34, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Hostage

Kind of new to the site, trying to figure out how to work things...

dosen't postage rhyme with hostage?

Not in any dialect I've ever heard. Postage has an o like crow whilst hostages o is as in hot(86.31.187.245 (talk) 23:58, 22 July 2008 (UTC))

Yet more rhymes for words 'without rhymes'

Here are more 'non-rhyming' words and their perfect rhymes. The rhyming words are from the Compact Edition of the OED unless noted. Most of these words also have rhymes with words that have the same base with a prefix. Some of these duplicate words given above.


Word Rhymes
aggry braggry
angry hangry (neologism), nangry, (plus prefixes)
animal disanimal
bulb culb, culbe, (plus prefixes)
bulbous culbous (non-OED)
chaos naos
elbow beelbow
galaxy agalaxy
gulf begulf, bloodulf, disgulf, engulf, ingulf
golf rolf (non EOD)
hostage costage (short o)
hostage postage (long o)
pint rynt, rhint, bint(?), behint (Robert Burns: The Cooper O' Cuddy)
pedant quadrupedant
reptile septile
width sidth


The following two words have alternate spellings.

vacuum (vaccuum), (plus prefixes) wolf (woolf), (plus prefixes)


The following 'non-rhyming' words all have perfect rhymes with words that are the same base word plus a prefix.

breadth, celebrity, chimney, denizen, depth, diamond, different, empty, engine, film, fugue, husband, integer, monster, neutron, obvious, office, olive, plankton, plinth, promise, sanction, shadow, tournament, tragedy, transfer, vacuum, wolf

Kdq (talk) 21:10, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Galaxy and agalaxy don't work because the emphasis is put on the "a" in agalaxy, rendering the rhyme a slant. Otherwise, thanks for your research, feel free to edit the article. Teh Rote (talk) 20:03, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Chimney

Flimsy? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.54.53.81 (talk) 02:29, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

Rhumney, in Wales (Welsh short u ~= English i). 212.137.63.86 (talk) 13:42, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

"olive - rhymes with door hinge"

Consider it edited...

Somestrangeflea 18:13, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Eldoraddow

In which accent, precisely, does shadow rhyme with Eldorado? I have tried to imagine many English accents and all of them fall down because shadow has a short a and Eldorado a long one. 212.137.63.86 (talk) 13:40, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

In truth, that was a guess- I imagined that Poe had figured out some way for it to rhyme, but if you would prefer, feel free to remove that note. 72.148.42.192 (talk) 12:26, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Regarding "bulb"

If bulb rhymes with culb, it should not be on this list. We did the same with orange, purple, silver, and month, so I will be removing bulb if no-one objects. 208.27.127.94 (talk) 14:18, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Toilet

'Toilet' doesn't seem to have any perfect rhymes. ColinMB (talk) 15:57, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Cleaning up

Here's what I'm about to do to clean up this messy page.

  • First of all, sporange does not rhyme with orange, as clearly stated in the usage note. I will be moving it into the list.
  • Secondly, the section regarding orange, purple, silver, and month will be retitled "Words with obscure perfect rhymes".
  • Thirdly, the terms bulb, eighth, elbow, and of will be removed. Here is my justification:
    No matter how obscure the rhyme, if it has a perfect rhyme, it must not be one the list. Bulb rhymes with culb, so it will be removed. Simple as that.
    Eighth is a perfect rhyme for weighth, an alternative spelling and pronunciation of weight- compare heighth.
    Elbow rhymes with beelbow, as was pointed out above.
    "Of" rhymes with love in American English and "sov" (just look it up, yes, it seriously is a real word) as well as "thereof" in British English.

Teh Rote (talk) 22:17, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I need evidence that eighth rhymes with weighth. The final consonant would seem to be different in RP, though the same in my pronunciation (since I have a /t/ in heighth).

I started moving words up to 'obscure', but many aren't even obscure, like plinth and synth. So I'm just going to start moving them here: zonary (donary, nonary, stonery—at least, I don't find nonary or stonery to be obscure) ...

Oh, and I'm putting elbow back in. We don't generally consider a word a rhyme when it rhymes with itself! If we did, we'd start getting things like she-wolf to rhyme with wolf (okay, that's not a perfect rhyme, but you get my point).

Restoring animal, unless you want to count the blend "manimal"!

kwami (talk) 20:23, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, when we remove words, we should make a list at the top of this page, with the word they rhyme with, so that mistakes can be corrected and a record kept so they aren't returned. kwami (talk) 21:26, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I have discovered

That the RhymeZone thing is completely and utterly useless. It barely covers an eighth of the English vocabulary. Please, use the OED or some other source when checking. Teh Rote (talk) 01:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

complete list of monosyllabic non-rhymes?

We might be able to get something close to a complete list of monosyllabic words if we put some effort into it. It's not worth even trying for disyllabic words, though it's good to have the more common ones. kwami (talk) 10:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd be willing to bet that a few of those we have on the "obscure" list. I'll get to work on finding others, though. Teh Rote (talk) 10:52, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Confused about "aitch"... it's listed at the bottom of the one syllable rhymes section but not in the main list. I can't think of a rhyme, but that's no proof. axschme (talk) 00:46, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Obsolete or dialectical rache. kwami (talk) 01:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

What about bulb?

Okay, I see the point of not removing pork from the list. But how about adding "bulb" to the list and maybe taking it off the words with obscure rhymes list. If we are talking about dialects (which still makes me uncomfortable) "culb" is no longer in use, and thus not a word in the (current) dialect that RP is an accent of. axschme (talk) 16:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Experiment/Merriment

I've always considered them /er.ɪ.mənt/ versus /er.i.mənt/. 128.109.2.110 (talk) 14:43, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Compound words

I don't see why compound words shouldn't be included in the list. Like Teh Rote said in an edit comment, if it is an English word and it has no rhymes, it belongs in the list. I am not going to immediately go out and look for all compound words with their stress on the third to last syllable and try to put them on the list. But if someone contributes to the article by adding a word with no rhymes it seems a little bitey to take it out. Compound word, as far as I'm concerned, is simply an etymological description, a word is a word and gunpowder doesn't have any rhymes. xschm (talk) 23:10, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of refractory rhymes. It would be impractical to list them all even if we knew what they were. Where do we draw the line? Also, it's easy to coin nonce rhymes for compounds. They may not be in dictionaries, but still in common use. For gunpowder, there's FunPowder, for example,[not allowed to add link] Dun Powder,[1] Sunpowder.[2] For gunsmith, there's funsmith,[3] Dunsmith,[4] Lunsmith,[5] punsmith, Sunsmith,[6] and possibly Onesmith.[7] For black powder, I can't even find its pronunciation in a dictionary to confirm the stress pattern. Who knows how many rhymes it may have that don't make it into the dictionary for the same reason. So, unlike most of the words in the article, we can't even confirm with the OED that it is unlikely to have rhymes. Because there are thousands of other possibilities, we shouldn't add words that we can't confirm. kwami (talk) 00:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
You are mixing a couple arguments. The one, that the words you removed has rhymes, is a reasonable argument. However, we are not in the habit of counting brand or band names as words for the purposes of this list, so I still contend that gunpowder has no rhymes. Also, family names, please, Lunsmith doesn't keep gunsmith off the list. But if you can find a word that rhymes with a word on the list, by all means, that disqualifies it as having no rhymes. But it has to be a word that is in use (not just one you made up to prove a point), and our only means of confirming use is through a dictionary. The second argument, that there are somehow too many words, is patent nonsense. This article is called List of English words without rhymes. There are two criteria for inclusion: 1) the word must be an English word, 2) the word must have no rhymes. If a word meets those two criteria it belongs in the list, end of story. xschm (talk) 16:35, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
The sections even say that a full list would be unmanageable, and you don't object to that. Why would that be "patent nonsense" when in general Wikipedia limits article length? What's wrong with Lunsmith? Does it not rhyme? (Because we do use family names.) Also, who says that brand names don't count? Now you're the one making up criteria. kwami (talk) 18:55, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Are you serious? Proper nouns? Well, the reason that we wouldn't include proper nouns is that they enter the lexicon not through general use but through very specific use. They don't, in the normal sense, have meaning (let's not turn this into a discussion of Wittgenstein). I could name my dog Rangst, document it in my blog, and take angst out of the list of one-syllable words with no rhymes. But that wouldn't make very much sense would it? I see the argument for very common names like Thomas (rhymes with promise) that are in dictionaries, but I personally reject it for more political than technical reasons. I don't think we should use family names either. "Gorringe" seems to me to be a very bad reason to keep "orange" off the list, but "sporange" does not. But that is a different argument. No one has claimed that compound words are not words. When someone comes to this article in good faith and adds a word with no rhymes, it is rude and unnecessary for you to remove it on arbitrary grounds. Mostly because there is nothing especially "representative" about the words currently on the list. Other things: is "something" a compound word? It's in the list. What is the point of saying that it is easy to make up words that rhyme with compound words? It is easy to make up words that rhyme with any word. But making up a word doesn't immediately get it into the lexicon. This article is a catalog of rhymeless words. It may become unwieldy, because, as you say, there are a lot of words with no rhymes. But there are plenty of ways to deal with long lists and we can do that when it comes to it. You did admirable work in cleaning up this article, but you don't own it. xschm (talk) 19:42, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
This isn't about ownership, it's about an article that is repeatedly badly edited. Compounds are different than just making up an arbitrary word: they are a productive means of word formation. You can coin a term like punsmith and your reader will know exactly what you mean. (I remember a story where a pickpocket described his profession as "fingersmith".) That's not true for "Rangst", which has no basis in English morphology. I concede that proper names are somewhat problematic, but established names are worth at least mentioning. One reason I wanted to keep compounds out of the list, besides the ease of rhyming them with meaningful coinages, is that we can't confirm them because even when dictionaries bother to list them, they very often they don't bother to list their pronunciations. This is the case for the OED at least. Therefore coming up empty with a pronunciation search of the dictionary will not confirm that the word has no rhymes even in that dictionary. kwami (talk) 21:01, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
I do agree that compound neologisms are easily comprehensible, and not unlikely to enter the lexicon. As far as I'm concerned, the bar for both words in the list and words that we count as rhymes should be the same: in the dictionary. We can get around the proper name difficulty that way, because most of the proper names we would like to include are in the dictionary. So I guess I am arguing that Blorenge (a hill) and Yankton (a Sioux tribe) shouldn't be used as rhymes. It may be harder to confirm the rhymeless status of compound words through a dictionary pronunciation search, but I don't think that is enough reason to exclude them. I think to exclude a word we need to find a rhyme--there is no real harm in having a word suspected of being rhymeless stay on the page for a while until someone finds a rhyme for it. To me the larger issue is one of welcoming outside contributors. The fact that someone comes to the article to help and adds a word with no rhymes should be encouraged. If they stick around they will see more of the issues, but I don't want to chase them off by saying their words are less important than the ones on the list. That's all. xschm (talk) 19:49, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Yankton is in the dictionary. The question then is whether we use a geographic or proper name dictionary that covers more obscure peoples and places. I suppose we could list words that have only proper-noun rhymes as being rhymeless, and then list the proper-noun rhymes after the entry. kwami (talk) 21:19, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Seethed + Breathed

Doesn't seethed rhyme with breathed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.86.12.113 (talk) 20:56, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Breathed has (at least) two meanings and two pronunciations. This one is the participle of breath, not the participle of breathe (which does seem to rhyme with seethed). xschm (talk) 21:14, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
I just thought of a rhyme: methed /ˈmɛθt/, as in high on methamphetamines.[8] Will remove from the list. kwami (talk) 22:50, 12 November 2008 (UTC)


Vegetable??

I'm sure vegetable has several rhymes, Supertramp rhymed it with acceptable, respectable, and presentable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.92.101.48 (talk) 19:28, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Those are slant rhymes. Every word has a slant rhyme, because you can distort them as much as you need to get a rhyme. (I see our def. of 'slant rhyme' is somewhat different. But not of Supertramp's 'rhymes' actually rhyme.) kwami (talk) 22:18, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

résumé

In article...résumé..... pay..... eh? IAmTheCoinMan (talk) 14:26, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

No, résumé is stressed on the ré, so it's rhyme would be /ɛzuːmeɪ/. kwami (talk) 18:52, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Original Research / Wiktionary

This list appears on the face of it to inherently constitute original research. Certainly many of the individual words seem to constitute original research. Also its not really clear why this article should be here and not on Wikitionary. Any comments on that? Locke9k (talk) 19:23, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Most of the words, or at least the monosyllabic ones, were taken from lists of putative refractory rhymes, and removed if rhymes could be found. AFAIK, Wiktionary does not have a place to list refractory rhymes. kwami (talk) 00:20, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
"Removed if rhymes could be found" seems like original research... It seems to me that the only non-OR way to do this would be to source every word in the list from some reference where they are listed as not having rhymes. Or am I perhaps missing something?Locke9k (talk) 03:09, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
No, adding words because you can't think of a rhyme would be OR. If you have a source, but can prove it's wrong, that's simply verifying the reliability of your sources. kwami (talk) 05:32, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Words with exactly one rhyme

Please see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Words with exactly one rhyme.
-- Wavelength (talk) 16:14, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
The discussion has been archived at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 February 13#Words with exactly one rhyme.
-- Wavelength (talk) 16:28, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Gouge

I don't think the word gouge has a rhyme. Can anyone suggest one? If not, perhaps it should be included. Kelisi (talk) 12:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

The rather obscure scrouge is the only rhyme in the OED. kwami (talk) 18:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Pork

To me, pork and fork are a perfect rhyme. Okay, for some obscure reason it is not considered a rhyme here. But what about Bourque, cork, dork, Mork, Tork, torque, and Zork? Matchups 17:42, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

We can't customize the article to the dialect of whoever happens to be reading it at the moment. The comparison is in RP, where all those words (that are in a dictionary) rhyme with fork, not pork. The former have the vowel of for, the latter the vowel of four. kwami (talk) 18:52, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Which, if you look at Received pronunciation, are both /ɔː/. Check out this section. 137.205.74.30 (talk) 21:13, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Okay, perhaps "RP as defined by the OED" then. kwami (talk) 21:18, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
The OED is a century old. Perhaps we should be using a more current source to decide what's a rhyme. I agree that "we can't customize the article the dialect of whoever happens to be reading it at the moment" and so "leap year" doesn't rhyme with "idea." But I suspect in this case that not only most native speakers but most references would consider "pork" and "fork" to be a rhyme, and that it is, if not customization, then at least WP:undue weight to edit this article otherwise. I have already checked dictionaries from both sides of the pond, and both Chambers and Webster support this. Matchups 01:42, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Let's see what others think. Do these dictionaries distinguish horse and hoarse? If we remove it, it would be useful in the text, as an example of dialectal variation. kwami (talk) 05:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Hey, wait a second! What excuse for a dictionary did you use? Pork and fork don't even rhyme in Random House! kwami (talk) 05:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I noted my dictionaries above in my post above. I also just checked Random House. The Second Edition (1987) shows them rhyming. Matchups 18:59, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Don't go by the OED. The pronunciation seems to think people pronounce "high" as /hʌɪ/ rather than /haɪ/ or /hɑɪ/. I tried /ʌɪ/ and sounds unintelligible (and I like to think, as a Southerner, that my pronunciation is very close to RP). The only word I can think of with /ɔə/ is "drawer", and that's only to disambiguate it from "draw". 137.205.74.30 (talk) 15:13, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and Matchups, "leap year" and "idea" would rhyme in RP but for the wrong stress (/ˈliːpjɪə/ v. /aɪˈdɪə/).137.205.74.30 (talk) 15:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Isn't that enough proof that RP is a joke? The RP article says that 2% of Britons speak RP, which means probably fewer than 1% of all English speakers. I believe that we need to change the guideline for this article to base it on modern, mainstream pronunciation as documented by modern dictionaries. Let's say any two of the major, respected ones. Matchups 18:59, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, I'm not sure leaving RP is the answer either. Rhyme is solely based on pronunciation and therefore the article needs to either settle on one accent (easiest) or some sort of market-basket of accents. And two words are deemed to rhyme when???, if they rhyme in 4 out of 5 of the most common english accents? Perhaps a table format with columns for RP, Standard American, Australian, Hiberno-English, Indian Subcontinent English (several sub-accents here I'm sure), Nigerian English, Jamaican English, 19th-century Mancunian-English. It starts to sound silly, (which rhymes with willy-nilly). Accents documented by modern dictionaries is a step in the right direction, but which ones and how many is a tricky POV-laden question. For the record though, I do think pork and fork rhyme. axschme (talk) 19:16, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
It isn't just RP that distinguishes pork from fork—Random House has them as not necessarily rhyming in US English. I know people who think friend and Ben rhyme, or pen and sin. Should we go by what they think? It's most useful to use a conservative & highly discriminating dialect like RP, and note where other dialects conflate its distinctions.
I think it's a better use of our time to come up with the rest of the monosyllabic refractory rhymes than to list what we have in some arbitrary basket of dialect which don't add any information to the article. kwami (talk) 19:45, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

(reduced indent)

hey kwami, you've done great work on this article and I appreciate it, but I think you need to be careful in a couple spots here. 1) I think we are talking about accents, not dialects (though some of my accent examples could probably also be described as dialects). Describing "other" accents as dialects can come off as pejorative. 2) There is no "standard" accent of English. RP proponents come off sounding rather snooty (and prescriptive) when they push it as "correct" or even as exemplary. I personally think there is a lot of interesting information we could provide here in terms of comparative non-rhyming in various English (language, not country) accents. And, like matchups points out, less than 1 percent of English speakers speak in RP. Of what use is a list of words that don't rhyme in some obscure accent? axschme (talk) 21:04, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
The difference between RP and GA is dialect, not just accent. Either can sound pejorative, but then the word "they" can sound pejorative. (I've actually met people who use the word "they" as a racial slur. Amazing.) That's not reason to Bowdlerize our discussion.
We can make most of these words rhyme if we choose the proper dialect. I don't find that very interesting. Besides the benefit of having the OED available, the nice thing about RP is that, except for dropping ars, if two words don't rhyme in some other dialect, they're not likely to rhyme in RP either. By choosing RP, we're getting near-maximal info. (Okay, we're neglecting Scottish English, but most people understand that's another story.) If we choose some less discriminating dialect just so we don't have to worry about pairs like pork-fork, then we're losing info, and readers who come across the statement that "pork" and "fork" don't rhyme will think that it's a mistake, rather than understanding the role that dialects can play in poetry. kwami (talk) 22:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
We're not pushing a prescriptive pronunciation (accent), but describing the distinctions that are made (phonology, & therefore grammar, & therefore dialect). The distinctions made in RP are made all over the world, including in the US, though some are regional. kwami (talk) 22:35, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't mean to bowdlerize, and I certainly didn't mean to be contentious. These are heavily politicized notions, so it is to be expected that there are real substantive disagreements. Therefore we shouldn't just paper them over with a terse "this article is from the perspective of RP". I have to insist on one point, grammar and phonology are irrelevant to this article. Rhyme is only a question of pronunciation. Accent, or pronunciation, are the best words to use here. Dialect infers a difference in vocabulary or grammar (and often culture) that is entirely beside the point. So, using the word dialect, while insisting that RP (which is always associated with privelege and class in England) is the best "dialect" to judge rhyme from comes off as elitist and out of touch. I just think that is something we need to be careful about when dismissing other accents in which rhyme patterns are different. I do not think it is as simple as saying, well if it doesn't rhyme in RP it is unlikely to rhyme anywhere, or the converse, if it rhymes in RP it rhymes everywhere. The accents of present day English are too varied and independent to make that assumption. I mean this comment as a prelude to further discussion. I think discussion is merited. But I don't know the answers. axschme (talk) 00:26, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Actually, it is a matter of both dialect and grammar. What you're talking about is not just various accents in whatever-we-call-the-dialect-that-includes-RP, but variation across dialects. GA is not an "accent" of the same dialect as RP. When two words rhyme in one lect but not in another, there is more than a simple difference in accent, but also a difference in phonology, which is part of grammar.
Correct, many words rhyme in other dialects which don't rhyme in RP—merry marry Mary all rhyme for me. But, except for dropping the ars (iron–ion, for example), words which rhyme in RP are highly unlikely to not rhyme in any American or Australasian dialect. I'm not saying RP is "better" for rhymes, or for poetry, only that IMO it's the most useful. My own dialect, GA, adds nothing at all apart from the ar, and loses quite a bit. It seems best to use RP as our default, and when we find rhymeless words in other dialects, such as iron in GA or something with the bad–lad split in Oz, we can add that with the appropriate note. But we shouldn't remove words like pork that are rhymeless in RP just because they rhyme in GA. kwami (talk) 02:41, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
I've just thought of something. In Estuary English, which is quite common in S England, there is a distinction between "for" and "four" roughly analagous to the OED's interpretation. The vowel /ɔː/ is pronounced what I would desribe as [oʷ] ~ [ʊʷ] (the latter may also represent /ɔːɫ/); "for" is [foʷ] and "four" is [foʷə]. I think this only occurs in open syllables (so not pork/fork), but it is interesting to note. 137.205.74.30 (talk) 09:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
PS As a chemist I always distinguish "iron" /aɪən/ and "ion" /ˈaɪˌɒn/ as they often occur in the same sentence (eg iron(II) ion).
Yeah, I couldn't figure out how those would rhyme. What about "iron" and "lion". Do those rhyme for you? kwami (talk) 10:24, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
Yep. 137.205.74.230 (talk) 12:57, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you guys seriously saying that pork doesn't rhyme with ANY of the following: bork, cork, dork, fork, orc, stork, torque, York? I don't have access to the OED, but I don't see why "pork" is different from any of these. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.76.60.154 (talk) 18:04, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

As above. Depends on your dialect. They rhyme for me, but then karsts and fasts don't rhyme for me, and they do in RP. kwami (talk) 18:20, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
I realize that rhymes depend on dialect, but is there ANY dialect where "pork" is said differently from ALL of the words I listed? (The word "bork" seems like a particularly good candidate since "p" and "b" are both bilabial plosives and the only difference is "b" is voiced whereas "p" is unvoiced, but perhaps it's not considered a word?) Does it rhyme with any of these in the OED or RP or whatever you guys are using as an authority? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.76.60.154 (talk) 21:43, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
No, it doesn't rhyme with any of those words. It isn't the initial consonant that's the issue (that would just be allophony), but the vowel: fork has the /ɔː/ vowel of forty, while pork has the /oʊ/ vowel of four. That is, the difference (for those who make it) is analogous to the difference between caught and coat. kwami (talk) 22:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Citizen and Music

How about these two? I can't find rhymes for them. Are they okay to add? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Samy Merchi (talk • contribs) 20:48, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Citizen rhymes with Men. Music rhymes with medic


Citizen rhymes with denizen, and they're both on the list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Annatto (talk • contribs) 00:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The stress on both citizen and denizen is on the first of their three syllables, so for a perfect rhyme they would need the first vowel sound to rhyme as well. The same principle applies to music. maxsch (talk) 16:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The article page currently says "music" rhymes with "anchusic," as in "anchusic acid." I've searched in vain for any explanation of what "anchusic acid" is. SRP Weston (talk) 05:55, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Gulf

It's a homophone for golf for me (AusE). JIMp talk·cont 18:03, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

That's sometimes heard in the US as well, apparently, as Merriam-Webster lists it. We're basing this article on RP, though. Teh Rote (talk) 21:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
I might add that homophones don't count as rhymes (according to the definition we are working with) even if they are spelled differently. So if golf and gulf are pronounced identically, then neither of them has any perfect rhymes. Well, except rolf, if that rhymes in the pronunciation you are using. But I just meant it as a comment on homophones. xschm (talk) 05:49, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Who added Month back in?

On 01:45, 7 November 2006 an edit to the discussion page was made from 202.64.169.72, which edit removed the list of words that rhyme with month.

Even if one does not agree that the following words are perfect rhymes (they *do* meet the criterion):

billionth centillionth decillionth millionth nonillionth octillionth quadrillionth quintillionth septillionth sextillionth trillionth zillionth

Certainly these do: midmonth twelvemonth

Can we let this one lie, now?

None of those words rhyme with "month". kwami (talk) 05:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
This article will not allow derivatives of the same word as rhymes.

Eighth

Doesn't "eighth" rhyme with "faith"? Am I going nuts or am I right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cchamp27 (talk • contribs) 02:58, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Not if you pronounce the /t/ in "eighth". rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Language Log

  • Liberman, Mark (8 December 2009). "Rhymes". Language Log. Retrieved 8 December 2009.

rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:26, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Orange

Doesn't Syringe rhyme with orange?

Not even close: "Inj" vs. "Ornj". kwami (talk)

Sandwich rhymes with Manwich, hey it's a brand name.

"Manwich" is a derivative of "sandwich", and so has specifically been excluded from consideration. kwami (talk)

Average rhymes with Beverage? Alpheta (talk) 08:58, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

No, "average" has an "a" sound, whereas "beverage" has an "e" sound. They're a partial rhyme only. kwami (talk) 11:36, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Even

Does "even" have a rhyme? The proper name "Steven" and abbreviations such as "leavin'" rhyme, but those don't count. Is there an old adjective I'm missing, words like "cleaven" and "bereaven" (neither of which are actual words)? Smokysunday (talk) 00:58, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Not common ones, unless you count Genevan. But there's also bereaven (bereaved) and yester-even. kwami (talk) 10:54, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Oh strange! I had even looked up "bereaven" before making this post, but www.dictionary.com doesn't list it. 98.234.104.61 (talk) 03:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
Well, it's not exactly common! The OED attests it once from 1619 and once from 1848. This would definitely go into the 'obscure rhymes' cat. if it weren't for the proper-noun rhymes:
♫ Good King Shark he doth spit out
♪ The legs and feet of Ste—phen.
♫ He bit the left and then the right
♪ To try and make them e—ven!
(only slightly less obscure than "bereaven"!) kwami (talk) 10:50, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Dialect-specific Words Should Be Included

If a word has no rhymes in RP but has them in other dialects, then it should be left in the list but with some notation like "(RP)" after it. Similarly for General American, etc. Certainly "of" and "love" do rhyme in AmE. Then the part at the beginning about the article being from an RP perspective should be removed. Mark Foskey (talk) 17:16, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Our main source was RP. And the best English dictionary is RP. Also, you can get lots of things to rhyme if you choose the right dialect for each word. There are, however, a few cases where we say no rhyme in GA, though there is in RP, or none in RP, though there is in GA. — kwami (talk) 22:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Minsk

I notice that it is a proper noun, but Minsk appears in Wiktionary. Plus, there is another city in Belarus called Pinsk.

Thanks. That snuck in while I wasn't watching. — kwami (talk) 01:48, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Fugue

The fact that "fugues" rhymes with "jougs" is exactly the reason to single out the plural- the plural has a rhyme, so it shouldn't be listed. In addition, why would "fugued" be given: Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com, American Heritage, and Encarta do not list a verb form. Teh Rote (talk) 19:29, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

But better dictionaries do. kwami (talk) 01:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Presumably so; I will not object to the verb form, then. I still object to the inclusion of fugues as a rhymeless word if it is mentioned that it rhymes with jougs. Teh Rote (talk) 14:43, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
It "might be considered" to rhyme with jougs. That is, if you consider -yoog and -oog to constitute a rhyme, or to constitute a rhyme after j. I don't know how RP is defined in such cases. kwami (talk) 19:40, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
The y-glide is generally considered a consonant; thus year rhymes with ear. In addition, the same problem does not appear with music and anchusic. Teh Rote (talk) 20:29, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
That's what I was about to say /j/ is a consonant. JIMp talk·cont 17:57, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
/j/ is normally considered a consonant. But /ju:/ is often considered a vowel. There's debate over this, but if you consider /j/ to be a C in fugue, then you need to posit that English has a large number of C clusters which can only be followed by the single vowel /u:/. Much more straightforward, in many phonologists' opinions, to posit a diphthong /ju:/ instead. (And historically it is a diphthong.) — kwami (talk) 06:49, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Purple

You guys are so dumb. I say we take Purple off the list. You guys have missed the most obvious rhyme there is: Nurple! C'mon people, isn't this supposed to be a good encyclopedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.98.88.247 (talk) 17:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

No offense, but "Purple Nurple" is just a dumb phrase created by reduplication. But to cheer you up, curple is a valid term in Webster's Third. 59.92.161.77 (talk) 14:02, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Fifth

Can't words like Myth, With, or even Sith rhyme with this word. They all end in 'th' and all the same words are stressed. (Low 'I' sounds followed by 'th'.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Flameheart682 (talk • contribs) 01:53, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

But they don't have an /f/ in the rhyme. — kwami (talk) 17:14, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Woman

Does "woman" have a rhyme? Wiwaxia (talk) 05:07, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I thought there wasn't, but the OED lists one: "tomen" (/toʊˈmɑːn, ˈtʊmən, ˈtʌmən/, the last two rhyming with general & dialectical pron. of "women", and the first being a spelling pronunciation). It was a Turkic word for 10,000 used for military divisions but now more commonly for an Iranian coin. There's even an example in verse! Rbt Browning, The Flight of the Duchess:
The band-roll strung with tomans
Which proves the veil a Persian woman's [9]
— kwami (talk) 07:44, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Angel

I can think of no words to rhyme with "angel." Do any exist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.102.12.67 (talk) 00:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Nothing in the OED, apart from the trivial derivation 'archangel'. — kwami (talk) 07:46, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Arugula

Does anything rhyme with arugula? BarneyLuvsYou (talk) 08:17, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

No, not in the OED anyway.
Which accent? Non-rhotic will get you more words that are close. Otherwise, the best I can find are virgula, tegula, spergula, regular, ligula. — kwami (talk) 17:02, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
Bugula! Wiwaxia (talk) 07:39, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Sculpts

"Sculpt" rhymes with "gulped", but does "sculpts" with anything? 76.183.242.73 (talk) 03:18, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't appear to. — kwami (talk) 14:49, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Against

I don't get why against was taken out of the article. What does it rhyme with?

Take a look at the table at the top of this page.
I'm going to revert you again, partly because you messed up the formatting. But pilm for film is a good obscure rhyme, so please put it back in.
You say that you checked whilst with the OED, but you said the same thing with against, so sorry, but I don't believe you, and am reverting those too. — kwami (talk) 01:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
As for "whilst" . . . a salmon returning to its spawning grounds is a grilse. Can the word be used as a verb? If so, it could give us the word "grilsed". (BTW, I'm an American, so I didn't know "whilst" was pronounced /ʍɪlst/ until I saw this person add it. I had always thought it was pronounced /ʍailst/. Wiwaxia (talk) 05:11, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
According to the OED, MW, and RH, it *is* /ʍailst/. — kwami (talk) 09:40, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Problem

Is there any one-word rhyme for "problem"? All I can come up with is two-word rhymes like "wobble 'em". Wiwaxia (talk) 07:08, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Not in RP. But "goblin" is a pretty close slant rhyme. — kwami (talk) 10:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Fiends

Looked all over and can't find a rhyme. Ichthyoid (talk) 02:03, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Not surprised. The only ones I can find are piends and teinds, both rather obscure. — kwami (talk) 07:13, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Is "kirsch" rhymeless?

Back in the 90's, when Prodigy had a Teens BB, we talked about rhymeless words and I commented that "kirsch" seemed to have no rhyme. In German, "kirsch" rhymes with the surname Hirsch, but in English, Hirsch is pronounced /hɝʃ/. So are there really no other words that end in /-iɹʃ/ in English? Wiwaxia (talk) 20:21, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

It would seem so. The OED doesn't have anything. I'll add it to the list. — kwami (talk) 22:11, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

month II

rhymes with hunth an abbreviation for 100 thousandth

Never heard of it, not in the OED or other dicts. Source? There is a surname Hunth, though.

And granth from Guru Granth Sahib the religious text of Sikhism in pronunciation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.94.176.133 (talk) 10:59, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

According to the OED and RH, that's pronounced "grunt". Source? — kwami (talk) 16:22, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Kovsh

There's this Russian-derived word, "kovsh", that means a kind of drinking container. Due to its odd consonant cluster at the end, I am assuming it is rhymeless. Can anyone please check for me? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ichthyoid (talk • contribs) 19:22, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

No rhyme in the OED. But is it really an English word? The give an English pronunciation for it, /ˈkɒvʃ/, but all of the quotes explain what it means, not something normally done w assimilated words. — kwami (talk) 23:05, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Mergers

This article states "wolf" and "gulf" as refractory rhymes. Many areas (both UK and US) have a merger of /ʌl/, /ʊl/, and /oʊl/, causing "wolf" and "gulf" to rhyme with each other. Ticklewickleukulele (talk) 15:54, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

That's true for lots of words. The only allowance we've been making for such things is GA, because it's widespread, and recent mergers in RP that may not be reflected in conservative dictionaries. — kwami (talk) 06:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Vuln?

At the pages at theregister.co.uk, such as this one, I've been seeing "vuln", the apocopation for "vulnerability", a lot. It seems as if this would be a rhymeless word. is it? Wiwaxia (talk) 15:10, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

It's also an archaic synonym for 'to wound' still found in heraldy, and yes, it is refractory per the OED. — kwami (talk) 06:34, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Thesp

Are there any rhymes for "thesp", the short form of "thespian"? 50.143.149.164 (talk) 08:49, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


Orange?

I don't think the rhyme example currently provided in this article (Blorenge) quite works. Checking the IPA, the first "e" in Blorenge should sound like "'e' in 'roses'". The "a" in orange does not have this sound in any of the pronunciations listed in the Wiktionary entry for orange (or in Merriam-Webster). Perhaps one of the suggestions others have offered below would be a better example. 72.182.101.110 (talk) 20:39, 23 October 2014 (UTC) Actually, I just checked OED, and they give a pronunciation of orange where the "a" sounds like "'e' in 'roses'". It sounds off to me, but I'm not about to argue with OED, so I guess Blorenge is fine. 72.182.101.110 (talk) 21:04, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


Listen, guys, i don't think anyone's about to dispute ALL of the following: <largel>—BINGE HINGE CHALLENGE SCAVENGE

(Nothing Rhymes with Orange) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.210.39.55 (talk) 22:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

um, yup, it's in the list.maxsch 05:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I think 'challenge,' 'lozenge,' and 'scavenge' all rhyme with orange.

And really you would have to pronounce door hinge, door henge or orange, oringe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.10.75 (talk) 20:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

70.65.34.148 (talk) 01:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC) Mt. Blorenge in Wales rhymes with Orange!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.127.223.129 (talk) 20:42, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

"English Contains No Rhyme for 'Orange'"

Had Sampson been Irish, and Mick,

He'd have cleaned up those Protestants quick;

And if William of Orange

Had come within jaw range,

There's be less work up North for Old Nick.

I wrote this limerick in 1960 after being told the rhyme was impossible. "Jaw range" seems pretty close to me. It refers to the weapon (jaw bone of an ass) with which the Biblical Sampson slew a thousand men. Mike Angus Walton (talk) 05:54, 8 May 2010 (UTC) Mike Angus Walton

Circus

I can't think of a rhyme for "circus," but see it neither in the list of words without a feminine rhyme nor the list of words with obscure rhymes; what am I missing? Tristan (talk) 04:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

It rhymes with "murcous", having cut off your thumb. 2601:9:4901:A200:CD40:4BC1:63B7:F8F4 (talk) 14:39, 21 January 2015 (UTC)


Doth

Doth "doth" (listed as a word without a masculine rhyme) not rhyme with "quoth," as in "Thus quoth the Raven"? (Or am I mispronouncing at least one of those words?) Tristan (talk) 04:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

"Doth" has the vowel of "does", "quoth" the vowel of "quote". — kwami (talk) 18:43, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Colors That End In Urple

What is Light Urple? xnamkcor (talk) 21:25, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

pussy

an automated filter prevents adding "pussy" "An automated filter has identified this edit as potentially unconstructive, and it has been disallowed. If this edit is constructive, please report this error." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.119.17.112 (talk • contribs)

wussy --Hillbillyholiday talk 07:47, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Parent

Can't think of a rhyme for the UK pronounciation of pair-ənt (IPA: pɛəɹənt). --Hillbillyholiday talk 07:56, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Pork old IPA pronunciation - confused

The article in its current form states:

"The OED no longer lists "/pɔək/" as an alternative pronunciation in its third edition."

However there is no IPA guide to what that /pɔək/ should actually sound like. I tried looking it up, but the backwards-c symbol (ɔ) only appears together with a colon (ɔː) and not by itself.

There is no citation to this statement. Can someone please advise exactly how the "alternative", allegedly non-rhyming pronunciation of "pork" sounds? Thanks. EuroSong talk 17:51, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

It was uncited anyway so I've chopped that bit out. --Hillbillyholiday talk 08:02, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Poem

Doesn't the two-syllable pronunciation of "poem" rhyme with "no'm"? Wiwaxia (talk) 15:10, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what 'no'm' is, but 'poem' rhymes with 'phloem', at least the way I was taught to pronounce 'phloem'. I was surprised to see it on the list; I remember rhyming it with phloem when I was 15 or so, so it can't be that difficult to think of.Angelastic (talk) 22:27, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
In the OED, poem has a reduced vowel while phloem does not, so they're not rhymes. Other dicts I've checked are the same. (Though I can't imagine actually pronouncing phloem that way for very long.) But the OED does give another rhyme, proem. "No'm" wouldn't count, as we're not including phrasal rhymes. — kwami (talk) 06:20, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
It looks like someone falsified the "checked in OED" statement for that entry. The only other addition since I checked them all against the OED is foier, but that one checks out. — kwami (talk) 06:28, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Some people in the UK do pronounce poem as /ˈpəʊɛm/ (to rhyme with phloem /ˈfləʊɛm/) rather than /ˈpəʊᵻm/ with the reduced vowel, but this variant is not specified in the OED. There is wide regional variation in the pronunciation of poem. The American pronunciations in the OED do rhyme (/ˈpoʊ(ə)m/ and /ˈfloʊəm/). Proem (/ˈprəʊɛm/) would rhyme with phloem. Dbfirs 09:50, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I've added wikt:phloem as a possible rhyme since it is a closer rhyme where I live than the biblical suggestions which end in am, but pronunciations vary so widely that we will not find agreement. Dbfirs 07:05, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

/ɔɪks/ and gulf-wolf

The words 'yoicks' and 'joiks' rhyme with 'oiks' and 'hoiks'. Should that be moved to the first section? Also, for speakers of some dialects (including my own), there is no distinction between /ʌl/, /ʊl/, and /oʊl/, so the words mentioned as having no rhymes, 'wolf' and 'gulf' actually rhyme, should this be mentioned? Thanks 2WR1 (talk) 18:09, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, see Wiktionary:Rhymes:English/ɔɪk. In my native dialect, gulf is pronounced /gʊlf/ to rhyme with wolf, and, in other dialects, I've sometimes heard wolf pronounced /wʌlf/, but the article specifies RP where these words are pronounced differently, so don't rhyme. Dbfirs 21:21, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
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