Home › Glossary › Letter C

Compound rhyme

Rhyme
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Rhyme involving multiple words or syllables creating matching sound

Detailed Definition
Compound rhyme: Rhyme involving multiple words or syllables that together create the rhyming sound, such as "London derrière" rhyming with "on there" or "break your heart" with "take your part." This technique, common in comic verse and hip-hop, demonstrates verbal ingenuity and creates unexpected connections between phrases. Compound rhyme expands rhyming possibilities beyond single-word matches and can produce humorous effects through unlikely pairings. The technique reveals rhyme as fundamentally acoustic rather than orthographic, dependent on sound relationships rather than spelling, and showcases how flexible rhyme can be in skilled hands.
Example
Example in poetry:
Compound rhyme occurs when two or more words together rhyme with another word or phrase, as in "daylight" rhyming with "play right" or "stairway" with "fair day."
Additional Notes
Compound rhyme occurs when two or more words combine to rhyme with a single word or another phrase. Examples include "fell asleep / tell a sheep" or "stairway / fair day," creating playful or complex sound patterns.
Also Known As
compound echo multiple rhyme complex rhyme Agglutinated rhyme Agglutinative rhyme Fusional rhyme hyphenated rhyme Mosaic rhyme
Skip to main content