Pararhyme

Pararhyme, also known as partial or imperfect rhyme is a term devised by the poet Edmund Blunden to describe a near rhyme in which the consonants in two words are the same, but the vowels are different. It is distinguished from half rhyme in that all the consonants should match rather than just the final ones.

Pararhyme is sometimes referred to as double consonance. It is a particular feature of the poetry of Wilfred Owen; see, for example Strange Meeting: “And by his smile I knew that sullen hall, / By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.” The lack of rhyming sounds here and the very failure of two similar words to rhyme can provoke a sense of great discomfort and a sense that something is simply not quite right. It is a discordant note that matches well to the disturbing mood of the poem.

Examples

See also