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off rhyme

Rhyme
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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 in which sounds are similar but not identical, often involving slant or near rhyme

Detailed Definition
Off rhyme (or slant rhyme) is a partial or approximate rhyme where sounds are similar but not identical—such as “love” and “move” or “heart” and “hurt”—used to create subtle sonic connections without the predictability of perfect rhyme.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Emily Dickinson, “room” and “storm” create slant rhyme; In Yeats’s “Easter 1916,” “faces” and “houses” near-rhyme; In Wilfred Owen’s “Strange Meeting,” “escaped” and “scooped” use consonance; In Auden’s “In Memory of W.B. Yeats,” “dark” and “verse” form off-rhyme.
Additional Notes
Off rhyme (slant, half, or near rhyme) uses similar but not identical sounds (e.g., “worm”/“storm”); creates subtle musicality without sing-song effect—favored by Dickinson, Yeats, and Heaney for emotional nuance.
Also Known As
Slant rhyme half rhyme near rhyme imperfect rhyme Diagonal rhyme near-perfect rhyme
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