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Paronomastic 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 based on words with similar roots or sounds that create puns or semantic play rather than perfect sonic match.

Detailed Definition
Paronomastic rhyme occurs when words with similar but not identical sounds—often involving puns or near-homophones—are rhymed for witty or expressive effect; it exploits the ambiguity between sound and meaning, as in Alexander Pope’s rhyming of “wit” and “write” to underscore thematic wordplay.
Example
Example in poetry:
Paronomastic rhyme in Shakespeare’s puns (“son/sun” in Sonnet 33); homophonic play in Lewis Carroll; modern example: Harryette Mullen’s “Sleeping with the Dictionary”; consonantal puns in Paul Muldoon
Additional Notes
Paronomastic rhyme: Rhyme based on words that sound similar but differ in meaning (puns or near-homophones); e.g., “son”/“sun”; adds wit or ambiguity to poetic soundplay.
Also Known As
Pun rhyme Wordplay echo Sound-alike correspondence Paronomastic sound
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