List of closed pairs of English rhyming words

This page has a list of closed pairs of English rhyming words—in each pair, both words rhyme with each other and only with each other.

Monosyllabic pairs

• bairn, cairn
• boosts, roosts
• coaxed, hoaxed
• dwarfed, morphed
• how've, Lauv
• lounge, scrounge
• lymph, nymph
• palped, scalped
• salve, valve
• smooth, soothe

Disyllabic pairs

Trochaic pairs

In a trochaic pair, each word is a trochee, with the first syllable stressed and the second syllable unstressed.

agile, fragile anguish, languish ankle, rankle anther, panther argent, sergeant ascot, mascot audit, plaudit austral, claustral awful, lawful badger, cadger bailiff, caliph bantam, phantom bargain, jargon Bernard, gurnard beverage, leverage biplane, triplane birchen, urchin bittern, cittern bodice, goddess bonnet, sonnet briefly, chiefly booger, sugar broadcast, podcast bullet, pullet buskin, Ruskin buttock, futtock cadre, padre cartridge, partridge cavern, tavern central, ventral cheaply, deeply cherish, perish Christmas, isthmus churlish, girlish clothing, loathing coastal, postal cockney, knock-knee coffee, toffee collet, wallet colored, dullard coltish, doltish combat, wombat cornet, hornet corpus, porpoise corset, Dorset cortex, vortex Cossacks, Trossachs

coven, oven cowboy, ploughboy crackpot, jackpot curlew, purlieu custom, frustum darken, hearken darkling, sparkling deafest, prefaced detail, retail dictum, victim[dubious – discuss] discal, fiscal dockside, oxide doesn't, wasn't doorway, Norway dovetail, love-tale emu, seamew errand, gerund exile, flexile extant, sextant eyebrow, highbrow faithful, scatheful farness, harness fescue, rescue figment, pigment finis, Guinness Finland, inland fitness, witness fixture, mixture flagship, hagship flourish, nourish fountain, mountain frequence, sequence fustic, rustic gallant, talent ghostess, hostess ghostly, mostly gibbon, ribbon grapnel, shrapnel gremlin, Kremlin gusset, russet harpist, sharpest hazard, mazzard Hendon, tendon highland, island hireling, squireling hotness, squatness

image, scrimmage inkhorn, stinkhorn juncture, puncture junket, plunket keyboard, seaboard kiddish, Yiddish kidney, Sidney lappet, tappet launder, maunder layoff, playoff leeward, seaward lengthen, strengthen lilacs, smilax livid, vivid lonely, only lordship, wardship loudly, proudly loyal, royal[1] magnate, stagnate menu, venue milder, wilder mileage, silage minnow, winnow modus, nodus mopish, Popish mournful, scornful mufti, tufty nescience, prescience nonage, Swanage nostrum, rostrum nuisance, usance ogress, progress pallor, valor parsley, sparsely peevish, thievish person, worsen pinto, Shinto rabid, tabid rhymeless, timeless ripened, stipend ripplet, triplet ruttish, sluttish Scotsman, yachtsman Scottish, sottish sextile, textile siphon, hyphen spoonful, tuneful tasteful, wasteful torpor, warper tumbril, umbril

Trochaic-or-iambic pairs

In an trochaic-or-iambic pair, each word can be either a trochee (stressed on the first syllable) or an iamb (stressed on the second syllable).

• contract, entr'acte
• discount, miscount
• hereby, nearby
• sunlit, unlit
• thereby, whereby
• therein, wherein
• thereof, whereof
• therewith, wherewith

Iambic pairs

In an iambic pair, each word is an iamb and has the first syllable unstressed and the second syllable stressed.

• barrage, garage
• chorale, morale
• eclipsed, ellipsed
• gyrate, irate
• henceforth, thenceforth
• Koran, Oran
• purvey, survey

Trisyllabic pairs

Dactylic pairs

In a dactylic pair, each word is a dactyl and has the first syllable stressed and the second and third syllables unstressed.

• agitate, sagittate
• analyst, panellist
• article, particle
• bandmaster, grandmaster
• banister, canister
• bingeworthy, cringeworthy
• bonytail, ponytail
• brotherhood, motherhood
• charlatan, tarlatan
• collier, jollier
• copulate, populate
• creepier, sleepier
• cuneiform, uniform
• devious, previous
• Everest, cleverest
• fealty, realty
• fortify, mortify
• gradient, radiant
• javelin, ravelin
• jawbreaker, lawbreaker
• jitterbug, litterbug
• Kodiak, zodiac
• lexicon, Mexican
• loyalty, royalty
• manhandle, panhandle
• medium, tedium
• mellophone, telephone
• minister, sinister
• modulate, nodulate
• mutiny, scrutiny
• president, resident
• serpentine, turpentine (in RP, and some British English dialects)

Amphibrachic pairs

In an amphibrachic pair, each word is an amphibrach and has the second syllable stressed and the first and third syllables unstressed.

• attainder, remainder
• autumnal, columnal
• concoction, decoction (In GA, these rhyme with auction; there is also the YouTube slang word obnoxion, meaning something that is obnoxious.)
• distinguish, extinguish
• pneumatic, rheumatic

Anapestic pairs

In an anapestic pair, each word is an anapest and has the first and second syllables unstressed and the third syllable stressed.

At this time, no anapestic pairs have been found. The pair "uneclipsed, unellipsed" is disqualified because uneclipsed also rhymes with ellipsed, and because unellipsed also rhymes with eclipsed.

Tetrasyllabic pairs

• beautifully, dutifully
• copulated, populated
• culminated, fulminated
• deifying, reifying
• delegated, relegated
• generated, venerated
• lacerated, macerated
• lecherously, treacherously

Pentasyllabic pairs

• constabulary, vocabulary

Asymmetric pairs

In an asymmetric pair, the words differ in number of syllables. Each pair is in a subsection according to the respective numbers of syllables in the words when they are in alphabetical order.

Disyllabic-and-monosyllabic pairs

Disyllabic-and-trisyllabic pairs

• cerement, endearment
• crucial, fiducial
• digest (noun), obligest

Disyllabic-and-tetrasyllabic pairs

• thinnest, violinist (although Bentley's Miscellany does contain the line "The Dublin Stout out-Guinnessed Guinness"^[2])

Trisyllabic-and-disyllabic pairs

• combustion, fustian
• diminished, finished
• eleventh, seventh

Trisyllabic-and-tetrasyllabic pairs

• bestial, celestial
• bigotry, obligatory
• brilliant, resilient
• cordial, primordial
• fricative, indicative

Tetrasyllabic-and-trisyllabic pairs

• alluvial, pluvial
• behaviour, saviour
• commodity, oddity (In GA, these rhyme with Alaudidae)
• emergency, urgency
• habitual, ritual
• sarrusophone, sousaphone

Pentasyllabic-and-tetrasyllabic pairs

• annihilated, violated
• illuminated, ruminated

See also

• List of English words without rhymes