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Talk:List of English words without rhymes

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Rhymes removed from the article

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Extended content, used at some point with the instructions "Please add any words you remove to this list"
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Untitled

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check whilst, sculpts

Words removed from or restored to the article
(Please add any words you remove to this list)
Word Rhyme Notes Why not a rhyme
against dispensed, incensed Removed fenced and sensed from this table
aggry braggry this is 'braggery'
alterity parity dexterity, posterity, etc. rhyme per OED (vowel of parity was wrong) 'parity' does rhyme in accents with the marry-merry-Mary merger
angry hangry (neologism), nangry these both contain 'angry': a blend and a misparsing
animal disanimal, dismal this is the same word
babe wabe, outgrabe, scrabe, suabe, nabe (slang) does not rhyme with astrolabe
beards (pl) Weirds (Fates) rhyme per OED
beige grège rhyme per OED: "Vera Dexter designed this sports dress of Belding's Crêpe in grège and beige."
blacksmith jacksmith rhymes per OED (also, we're not compiling compound words, which would number in the thousands)
breathed (participle /brɛθt/: well-breathed, long-breathed, etc. methed (high on methamphetamines) (too recent for the old OED)
bulb culb, culbe presumed rhyme, added to 'obscure'
bulbous ? culbous (non-OED) no evidence that this is a word
canine ranine rhyme per OED
celebrity tenebrity rhyme per OED
chaos naos rhymes per OED
chocolate 2-syll. rocklet,[1] 3-syll bockelet[2] rhyme per M-W11 OED only has bockerel and bockeret (M & F) for the latter.
circle hurkle, opercle rhyme per OED
clothes oaths /ˈoʊðz/ rhyme per OED
condom quondam modern pronunciation is a rhyme OED pronunciation was still /ˈkɒndɒm/
crayon rayon rhymes per OED, though both have alt. pronunciations
denizen venison rhymes per OED does not rhyme in GA
different odoriferent, proliferent, vociferent rhyme per OED
eighth weighth likely /eitθ/ vs. /eiθ/
elbow beelbow this is the same word
experiment merriment rhyme per OED
flange gange (protect fishhook w a wire) rhymes per OED
film pilm "pilm" is an old British word for dust. Rhymed with the online Unabridged Merriam-Webster's Dictionary
galaxy agalaxy no, stress is wrong
gulf begulf, bloodulf, disgulf, engulf, ingulf these are the same word, except for bloodulf, which per Webster's 1913 has the wrong stress (Blood"ulf /ˈblʊdəlf/)
golf rolf rhymes per OED
heighth dryth (drought), myth (old pronunciation), rithe (a brooklet), etc. rhyme in RP (/-aiθ/) per OED None of these rhyme in GA, where heighth is /haitθ/
homograph nomograph rhyme per OED
hostage (short o) costage presumed pronunciation only ?
hyphenate asiphonate per OED (presumably also siphonate)
jejune moon etc etc etc. per OED
karsts fasts rhymes in RP, though there is no rhyme in GA
lairds (pl) cairds (tinkers), brairds (first shoots of grass) rhyme per OED
Lisbon Brisbane per OED & Wiki pronunciation
matrix administratrix etc. dozens per OED
month ? hunth (abbrev. for 100 thousandth) no evidence this is a word, but there is (n + 1)th. (holimonth, twelvemonth, & mid-month, besides containing the word, have the wrong stress pattern)
mouth (verb), mouths (noun) south (verb) (-/auθ/ or -/auð/) the verb mouth & the plural noun are hard to rhyme, but covered by the 2ary pron. of the verb south per dict.com
music anchusic (obscure) rhymes per OED
(un)necessary sedentary The vowel sounds match perfectly, at least with the American pronunciation
of sov, Sov, rav rhyme per OED (& sovs, ravs rhyme)
orange borange already have some words, but this supposed Aussie slang is not confirmed. one alleged use = the brown-orange skin color white people get from using too much fake-tan lotion. as a possible blend with orange, it wouldn't count anyway.
pedant quadrupedant obscure (means 'horse' etc.) wrong stress, in addition to otherwise having identical syllables
pint rynt, rhint, bint(?), behint (Robert Burns: The Cooper O' Cuddy) rynt = rhint; not 'bint'; behint not RP
pizza Tietze as in Tietze's syndrome. Rhymes per OED.
plankton Yankton (the Yankton nation, town). rhymes per dictionary.com
poet introït (antiphon in Mass) w/ diaeresis, rhymes per OED. also numerous phrases: know it, show it, etc.
poem proem and for many people probably phloem
pork Bork, cork, dork, fork, stork, York I don't have access to the OED but surely one of these is a rhyme. No, none of them are. They're all /ɔːk/ rather than /ɔək/ (or in GA, /ɔːrk/ rather than /oʊrk/, if anyone in GA maintains that distinction)
porringer oranger rare; usually "orangest" but "more orange" ("more orange than the orangest orange") ?
postage hostage (long o) presumed pronunciation only ?
promise Comice, phlomis as in Comice pear. both rhyme per OED
reptile septile rhymes per OED
rhythm algorithm, logarithm no, stress is wrong
sculpt gulped also 'pulped' in OED
shadow laddo (as in "lad") rhymes per OED. also, for some, dorado (a fish)
sowths, -ed a tune, souths, -ed (verb) /auθs, auθt/ sowth and south are identical rhymes, and so count as unrhymed. bad-mouthed etc. have the wrong stress. Scouth and routh do not seem to have plural forms. Plural of drouth (= drought) possible but unattested.
spatula Terebratula (brachiopod) rhymes per OED
tenth nth pronounced "enth", clearly attestible
tufts (pl) yufts (pl) tuft rhymes w yuft, a kind of Russian leather, per OED; attested in pl.
valve salve rhymes per OED
wasp knosp (knob ornament) rhymes per OED
widow kiddo
width sidth rhymes per OED (obscure)
window Indo, pindo (palm)
zonary donary, nonary, stonery rhyme per OED

Male rhymes to check

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Just a place to keep track of male rhymes that don't have many words in them.

propose that wounds be moved to list of words with obscure rhymes. Compare with Elizabethan use of "zounds," which does not rhyme with "hounds" but is a derrivative of "God's wounds" or "Christ's wounds" like this: "God 'swounds"...

  • asterisks mark apparent refractory rhymes which might be added to the article.
eɪ rhymes
-eɪtʃ (aitch, nache)
-eɪtʃt (aitched*)
-eɪʒ (beige, greige)
-eɪʃt ("creched"*? [/ɛ/ pronunciation has rhymes])
-eɪθt (graithed, (good) faithed)
æ rhymes

[Help, please! kwami (talk) has a bug in his copy of the OED which won't allow these rhymes to be checked]

-æʒ (?)
-æld (palled (around), corralled)
-ælt (shalt)
-ælts (Alz, shalts (as in "shalts and shalt-nots"))
-æpts (adapts, rapts [& periapts -slant])
-æð (?)
-æðz (?)
-ævd (halved, calved)
ɛ rhymes
-ɛŋk (Penk, elench, Schenck) obscure
-ɛps (reps, seps, preps, steps, Led Zep's)
-ɛð edh* (only Sp. merced "gift")
-ɛðz edhs*
-ɛzd (be-fezzed, lezzed (out))

I've hatted what appears to be mostly untouched since 2019 at least. --128.164.177.55 (talk) 20:16, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

pint

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night --Nobo2022 talk 012:416, 16 October 2017

english

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Isn't this page titled "List of ENGLISH words without rhymes"? Why do people insist on trying to use words from other languages to rhyme these unrhymable words? Also, should slang that is not part of majority use be counted? Or, for that matter, made up "words" like names and such? If I say that glorange is a word I often use to mean "something made up" or that my parents named my sister Murple, that doesn't mean that these now become a part of the common contemporary English language and therefore orange and purple are now no longer rhymeless. This is why we have to stick to mainstream, scholarly accepted English language dictionaries for official word lists.

Silver

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Does "silver" have any rhymes? Can I add it? Dylanga 03:24, 30 November 2006 (UTC) Wait: I just read the rest of the article and had my question answered... never mind.[reply]


Silver rhymes with shiver, sliver, liver, never or anything else with "er"

see definition of rhyme, sil is the stressed syllable, therefore the sounds il-ver must be repeated for it to be a true rhyme and not just a slant rhyme. maxsch (talk) 19:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To find a rhyme for "silver"

Or any "rhymeless" rhyme

Requires only will, ver-

bosity, and time. - Stephen Sondheim.

Silver rhymes with kill her, quilt fur, still purr, will spur, whisper, river, refer, incur, shrill turn, quick slur, sinister, trickster, deliver, etc. The list goes on. Just match the syllables. -Sheldon Miller.


Consider the Pittsburgh Pirates Hall-of-Fame baseball player and hero Willie Stargell. His given name is "Wilver." I can come up with a poem almost instantly.

Glove of stone

Bat of silver.

Heart of gold:

Stargell, Wilver.

WHPratt (talk) 04:39, 16 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Parmesan

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How about parmesan or muenster? Do they count as rhymeless words

Plankton

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what about yankton in South Dakota

Film and Pilm

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Pilm is totally a word. It appears in Webster's Third, a dictionary that doesn't lie!

Citrus

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Rhymes with vitrous. So removing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough10:21, 29 April 2014 (UTC).

obscure

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If one is going to have a section of words that have obscure rhymes, then one needs to define obscure. It's likely to include an arbitrary component, e.g. something like "only 'x' number of mentions in 'y' amount of time (or 'z' number of internet mentions)." That would seem fine to me -- even if adjusted over time, as we should anticipate. But obscure needs to be defined. Perhaps there's a shortcut -- dictionaries seem to use the term like they use the term, "archaic." So whatever standard the dictionary uses might suffice -- or use the dictionary itself, if not its standard (e.g.), "If the OED uses the word 'obscure' in its definition, then it's in this list." 2601:204:D200:7000:B98D:6F18:5782:CF5B (talk) 13:03, 13 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Vozhd

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Are there any words that rhyme with vozhd (note: the "zh" in "vozhd" is pronounced like the "s" in "vision", and the "o" in "vozhd" is pronounced like the "a" in "father") IsraeliEditor54 (talk) 08:49, 15 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

massaged, collaged 174.91.170.173 (talk) 19:45, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Canadian/British pronunciation of against

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"against" in American English rhymes with "incensed", but in many Canadian and some British accents it has an "ay" sound, /əˈɡeɪnst/. I can't think of any rhymes with this pronunciation 174.91.170.173 (talk) 19:52, 9 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]