Half Rhyme Examples

Half Rhyme is the term used to refer to words that nearly rhyme-but not quite. Often, poets are able to use words that sound similar-similar ending consonant sounds-but do not exactly match-differing middle vowel sounds.

There are other terms that mean the same thing as half rhyme: approximate rhyme or imperfect rhyme.

Bald/Held

Wall/Mail

Shore/Mare

Long/Swing

Examples of Half Rhyme in Poetry:

From Yeats' "Lines Written in Dejection":

When have I last looked on

The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies

Of the dark leopards of the moon?

Also from Yeats' "Sailing to Byzantium":

That is no country for old me. The young

In one another's arms, birds in the trees

-Those dying generations-at their song,

From Emily Dickenson's "The Thing With Feathers":

"Hope" is the thing with feathers-

That perches in the soul-

And sings the tune without the words-

And never stops-at all-