The word "orange" is commonly cited as an example, but my rhyme for it is "door hinge".

gringe, singe, impinge, lozange

Stanley Wilkin Thanks, but I should have made my question clearer: I was asking for "whole-word rhymes" not mere end-syllable rhymes. Is there a technical term for that?

know what you mean, but above certainly are half-rhymes, so I think the word is full rhyme. I cannot think immediately of one for orange. English usually has plenty of rhyming words.

Stanley Wilkin The world of rhyme is much more complex than I thought:

In my opinion, the word "arrange" would be very close, especially for non-English-speaking countries like Russia. For example, the Russian word "аранжировать" is pronounced "orange" in English.

Dear all,

One counterexample to orange not rhyming with another word is blorange. The word 'blorange' is actually used to refer to a hair colour [1-3]. One way to look at this question is from the perspective of phonology (a topic witch I have little acquaintance with, so I apologize if what follows is rather speculative and very likely wrong) Technically speaking, words are compounds of features, or more precisely, the phonological form of a word can be represented as a bundle of phonological features. The properties of a word are then generated from the properties of features. In case of rhyming, the relevant features are the syllables. If we have two different words, then the words rhyme iff they contain identical syllables.[4] If this is correct, then in order for a word A not to rhyme with any other word, it must be the case that no other word can contain a syllable that is contained in A. While it seems imaginable that such a word exists, it would be rather suboptimal to have a syllable that can essentially be used in one case but not in any other. So, on the basis of optimality, it seems rather unlikely that such a word exists. It seems to me that this is a hard empirical question, hence any counterexample would be rather interesting.

Best,

Sven Beecken

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "orange" and "silver" only have one so-called perfect rhyme each, respectively "sporange" and "chilver":

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/are-there-any-words-that-rhyme-with-orange/

Is there any perfect rhyme for ‘ninth?’

Israel A. C. Noletto

RE: Is there any perfect rhyme for ‘ninth?’

Nice one. There is some sort of computer windowing system called "Xynth" but I'm not sure if the vowel is long or short (I've only encountered it in print) or if the word is sufficiently generic to count as a word of English.

Here's an almost rhyme: in a mathematical context one may speak of the "y nth" root of y^n. 😜

magazine!

Juanita Vélez Olivera

magazine -> dramamine

Dear all,

There seems to be a surprisingly (at least to me) large number of English words with no rhymes, according to the Wikipedia entry List of English words without rhymes:

„The majority of words with antepenultimate stress, such as animal, citizen, dangerous, and obvious, and with preantepenultimate stress, such as necessary, logarithm, algorithm and sacrificing, have no rhyme.“

• Here, 'rhyme' means 'perfect rhyme' defined as “the exact match of all sounds from the last stressed vowel to the end of the word“.
• „In linguistics, the ultima is the last syllable of a word, the penult is the next-to-last syllable, and the antepenult is third-from-last syllable. In a word of three syllables, the names of the syllables are antepenult-penult-ultima.“

Best,

Sven Beecken

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_without_rhymes
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_(linguistics)

Good to see you fruitful responses

I think sight rhymes are fascinating, e.g., bury and fury.

Because of the images they throw up, almost imperceptively.

Apropos of fascination with sight rhymes, I have a similar soft spot for "eye dialect":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_dialect

Animal, see above, pal, mall.

sacrificing, splicing

Stanley Wilkin

• pal -> gal
• splicing -> icing -> dicing
• mall (if pronounced like maul) -> ball -> tall -> gall -> call -> moll*
• But I've heard some Americans pronounce (or mispronounce?) mall to rhyme with pal (and also pronounce Pall like pal) when referring to Pall Mall cigarettes; could be a regional thing that's disappearing, since I haven't heard anyone say "pal mal" cigarettes in ages.

* Although in some regions of Canada and/or US there may be a slight difference between mall and moll. Probably in the same places (not mine) where merry and marry, and Barry and bury are pronounced differently.

Yes, Karl. I;m sure ones can be found for the others as well.

What about words that rhyme and are connected?

Fed, bread

Or when bread is not available and no one can be fed-dead.

Weirdly in some US regional dialects, “Aren’t You” is pronounced “Orange You.” —— “Orange you going to Joe’s wedding?”

Karl Pfeifer

Here atached is a sight rhyme poem titled Mars which I wrote several years ago, never published:

Stanley Wilkin RE: "Or when bread is not available and no one can be fed-dead."

Or when zombies are faced with a famine of brains to feed on:

The Unfed Undead — good title for a B movie. 🤢

Karl, already seen it.

Door hinge rhymes with orange

Paul Burke Looks like we've come full circle.

Month? Marathon. Wolf. Is there one for purple?

• month → cunth (vulgar or offensive slang; it can also represent a lisping pronunciation in dialogue, but that wouldn't count)
• marathon → whereupon
• purple → nurple (portmanteau of nipple + purple or shortening of "purple nurple"; cf. "titty twister")
• wolf: Well, you’ve got me with this one, unless I’m allowed to reach way, way back to early forms of proto-English low German, in which case wolf → twolf (twelve). Well done, Paul Burke . 👏

purple-slurpel (a noisy and messy way of eating pork chops and fries)

Slurpel (or slurple) is the color of a bruise caused by an overexuberant hickey. It may also refer to the bruise itself. 😘

Perhaps a rhyming word for wolf could be gulf? A gulf being a large inlet from the ocean into the landmass . Karl Pfeifer Paul Burke ?

Angst?

Kate Doyle wolf and gulf? Not in Canadian or US English....

Wolf and gulf are half rhymes? At least the the o and u do not match.

I guess from an Irish-english and British-English dialects there will be difference from American/Canadian

Angst? Thankst' you for the suggestion....

More angst: "But before I tell it, thou must first sing for me all the songs thou hast sung for thy child! I am fond of them. I have heard them before; I am Night; I saw thy tears whilst thou sang'st them!" — Hans Christian Andersen, "The Story of a Mother"

Angst and thanks surely or is that the English softening of vowels-the a.

Kate Doyle Just curious: In your dialect of English, would "gull" rhyme with "wool"?

Karl Pfeifer Yes - they would indeed rhyme.

This raises some points about the authenticity of the question if accents spoil the notion. Thereby, does the Ancient Mariner, dependent on rhyme for effect, become just an incomprehensible exercise in laboured prose?

Does Tyger, Tyger burning bright/in the forests of the night become a silly, joking nursery rhyme? I mean lets face it-what immortal hand or eye/could frame thy immortal symmetry' hardly rhymes. Does it not depend on the London accent of Blake and differences in pronunciation?

middle of the night

Yes Stanley Wilkin , when I first asked the question little did I realize how complex the issues were, how many different criteria or desiderata might be invoked, and how nuanced the answers might become.

floccinaucinihilipilification .....

Think of art, Karl, just think of art.

Month. Bulb. Rhythm. You can use "door hinge" to rhyme with "orange".@Karl Pfeifer

month/lunch/bunch

bulb/robe/globe

rhythm/trim/

Those are a bit off Stanley Wilkin

How about:

Rhythm → with him, with hymn

Previously I suggested this for "month":

month → cunth (vulgar or offensive slang for a very small unit of measure; it can also represent a lisping pronunciation in dialogue, but that wouldn't count)

You should read previous posts, Paul Burke . "Door hinge" for "orange" was my very first answer, and I already repeated it for your benefit once before.

Fine, but rhythm with trim is fine too, the y taking the i, that is e sound. Rhythm with hymn merely looks closer because of similarities of spelling. The hy sound does not actually correspond and sets out a slight tonal illusion because of their visual similarity, working negatively with my example.

why door hinge for orange when hinge is fine as the oo creates the usual long vowel sound while the o creates the short, thereby does not work?

Stanley Wilkin OK, subtle vowel differences may be evident across geographical regions. For example where I grew up, "merry" "marry", and "Mary" were all pronounced the same, and moreover rhymed perfectly with "Barry", "berry", "bury" and "nary". Yet 1500 km east, there were definite differences among some of them, and I think TV and mobility (both geographic and social) has also led to some differentiation since my youth.

I suppose what I said in my last answer was ambiguous: I didn't mean "rhythm" rhymes with "him" and "hymn": I meant "rhythm" rhymes with "with him" and with "with hymn". Sure, "trim" as well as many others would work for last-syllable-only-rhyming. But I forwent those because I thought they were too easy. Of course one could add the further restriction that rhymes for words be matched by single words, in which case I acknowledge defeat.

Still, the long vowel and short vowel rule must abide wherever you are. And yes two word answers is a bit of a cheat whatever the size of your feet (sorry!).

Stanley Wilkin Still, an ô is an ô is an ô. Where I come from "door" does not have a long vowel, nor is that at variance with the dictionary. It's not like the German "doof".

Karl, yes it is not a fixed mark. But nothing in English is, because of spelling variations in the past. Usually that is expressed by a following vowel or consonant.