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I know there're various types of rhyme in English, such as slant rhyme. There're also things called assonance and consonance.

I plan to rhyme "pan" with "screen".

Essentially two monosyllabic words ending with "n".

Obviously this is imperfect rhyme at best.

Is there a linguistic term to describe this type of pairing? If so, what is it called?

Thank you.

Zack Xu
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  • I'd be tempted to call it consonance. But because the rhyme is so limited, even that's a stretch. – Dan Bron Aug 24 '14 at 17:52
  • Welp, I was wrong. The closest match on WP is indeed slant rhyme (aka half rhyme). – Dan Bron Aug 24 '14 at 17:54
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    I would call it not a rhyme at all. I would only consider pan and screen to ‘rhyme’ if they were part of a sentence where every word ends in an n, as in “In Penn, ten fine men pan an’ nine then line the screen” or something (preferably something that makes a bit more sense, though). – Janus Bahs Jacquet Aug 24 '14 at 17:54
  • I'm with Janus on this one. I'd call it *assonance* though, especially the example he gives. – Will Crawford Dec 20 '18 at 13:02

2 Answers2

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I think pararhyme is close to what you are asking:

  • is a half-rhyme in which there is vowel variation within the same consonant pattern.
  • "Strange Meeting" (1918) is a poem by Wilfred Owen, a war poet who used pararhyme in his writing. Here is a part of the poem that shows pararhyme:

Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

Janus Bahs Jacquet
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  • Thanks. Essentially Wilfred Owen rhymed "stirred" with "stared". I think "pan" and "pain" are pararhyme, but "pan" and "screen" are not quite. – Zack Xu Aug 24 '14 at 19:14
  • I feel like "bestirred" and "stared" is pushing it. – Simon Kuang Aug 25 '14 at 03:48
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    @SimonKuang: It may seem like it, but recall that Owen was educated in Birkenhead, and in some of the local accents "stir" and "stare" are in fact pronounced similarly or identically. – psmears Jun 10 '15 at 17:29
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I think this is consonance, the repetition of consonant (not necessarily all consonants), which is "n" in my case.

Examples of consonance:

"weird", "blood"      (the repetition of the ending "d")
"reek" and "book"     (the repetition of the ending "k")
"pan" and "screen"    (the repetition of the ending "n")

Consonance + Assonance would get you full rhyme when you have two monosyllabic words, for example,

"flood" and "blood"
"rook" and "book"
"glean" and "screen"
Zack Xu
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