Help with how to determine if two words would make an acceptable rhyme? Is there are rule of thumb?

Question

I'm wondering if the last sylable of "patience" and "reluctance," or "once" truly rhyme?

I am writing a sonnet, and am having a bit of trouble on that point.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Why not get your hands on a rhyming dictionary? I bet you can find one online, or at any bookstore.

I deal with poetry all the time, and I have seen some pretty unusual rhymes!

Answer 2

The rule for a perfect rhyme is that all syllables following the final accented syllable must match.  Even patience/nations is not a perfect rhyme because the `n' in the second syllable of `nations' is slightly longer, while the `s' sound is shorter.  These rhymes are called feminine, double (or triple, etc), or hudibrastic.  In general unless carefully modulated, the effect is humorous.  For example Byron amuses himself rhyming patience with relations:

Alfonso saw his wife, and thought of Job's;

He saw too, in perspective, her relations,

And then he tried to muster all his patience.

Off hand, reluctance only rhymes perfectly with conductance/inductance.

Shakespeare uses double rhymes without humorous intent (flower/shower, etc) as well as to suggest he is doing something slightly strange:

A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted

Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;

A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted

With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;

The pair of double rhymes signals that sonnet 20 is the strangest sonnet in the whole sequence: Shakespeare tells a story in which Nature made the Young Man a woman, fell in love with her, and for that reason changed her to a man, thereby confounding Shakespeare.

Edit: For once/reluctance, this is only an acceptable feminine rhyme if you put a huge syllable before `once' to make it comparatively unaccented, which must also rhyme with the next-to-last syllable of reluctance.  For example:

Striving with disheartening reluctance,

Clouded I its eyes with dirt, then ducked once

Through; so flowed I out in cool conductance.

Obviously this is rather humorous-- and not very humorous at that.

Answer 3

I'd accept "patience" and "reluctance", but I dont think "once" would rhyme with either of them. Here, it's about the vowel sound. The "a" in "reluctance" can sound like an "e", but the "o" in "once" can't.

I don't think there is a rule of thumb, other than...sound it out.

Answer 4

i think that patience and reluctance rhyme but once doesn't really fit in that well.

i don't really think there is a rule of thumb, usually i just write what sounds good or flows together.

Answer 5

They aren't exact rhymes (to be so, not only do the sounds have to match exactly, but you can't rhyme an accented syllable with an unaccented one).  However, off-rhymes have been acceptable to the poetry police ever since the mid-20th century, so you can get away with it as long as you're consistant.  A single off-rhyme in a sonnet is going to stand out if everything else is exact .

Answer 6

Yes, its a little bit..... u know. But it can go. BEST OF LUCK!!!!