Rhyme Scheme Analyzer
Paste a poem and get its rhyme scheme lettered — ABAB CDCD EFEF GG for a Shakespearean sonnet, AABBA for a limerick — with every line ending's rhyming sound shown and each link marked perfect, same-word or slant. Rhymes are matched by pronunciation, not spelling. Free, no sign-up.
Type or paste a poem to letter its rhyme scheme.
How to Use the Rhyme Scheme Analyzer
- Enter the poem. One line of verse per line of text. Leave a blank line between stanzas and the scheme is shown stanza by stanza.
- Choose what counts as a rhyme. By default only perfect rhymes and a repeated end word (a refrain) are lettered. Tick the slant box to letter assonance and consonance too.
- Read the scheme. The big line of letters is the answer. If it matches a known pattern the tool names it.
- Check the table. Each line shows its ending word, the sound that has to match, the earlier line it rhymes with and the kind of rhyme. Near rhymes that were not counted are listed beneath.
What Counts as a Rhyme
The rhyming part of a word runs from its last stressed vowel to its end, taken from the Carnegie Mellon University Pronouncing Dictionary. In day it is the vowel alone, ā; in flying it is the vowel and everything after it, ī-ing. Two lines rhyme when their endings are compared this way, not when they are spelled alike.
| Kind | Rule | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Perfect rhyme | Different words with the same stressed vowel and every sound after it | day / play, flying / dying |
| Same word | The identical end word again, as in a refrain | beard / beard |
| Slant rhyme: assonance | The same stressed vowel, different closing sounds | time / mind |
| Slant rhyme: consonance | The same closing consonants after different vowels | stone / gone |
| Slant rhyme: final vowel | Both words end on the same vowel, one of them unstressed | me / immortality |
| Eye rhyme | Spelled alike at the end, pronounced differently; only ever a note | love / move |
A one-syllable rhyming part is called masculine (day), a two-syllable one feminine (flying), and the table says which. Words the dictionary lacks, such as invented names, are compared by how their endings are spelled, and the table marks that as a guess.
A Worked Example
Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 (1609) ends its lines day, temperate, May, date, shines, dimm'd, declines, untrimm'd, fade, ow'st, shade, grow'st, see, thee. The analyzer reads seven rhyme sounds across fourteen lines and letters them ABABCDCDEFEFGG, the pattern of a Shakespearean sonnet: three quatrains and a closing couplet. Line two is the one to look at. Temperate is tem-prit in the modern dictionary, which would not rhyme with date; the tool allows the older full stress on -ate that Shakespeare relies on, and the table shows the match.
Edward Lear's limerick There was an Old Man with a beard (1846) comes out AABBA: beard and feared rhyme, Hen and Wren rhyme, and the last line brings back beard. With the refrain box on, line five is linked to line one as a same-word rhyme; with it off, it still rhymes with feared.
| Form | Scheme | Lines |
|---|---|---|
| Couplets | AABB… | Any |
| Alternate rhyme | ABAB | 4 per stanza |
| Enclosed rhyme | ABBA | 4 per stanza |
| Ballad stanza | ABCB | 4 per stanza |
| Limerick | AABBA | 5 |
| Rhyme royal | ABABBCC | 7 per stanza |
| Terza rima | ABA BCB CDC… | Any, in threes |
| Shakespearean sonnet | ABAB CDCD EFEF GG | 14 |
| Petrarchan sonnet | ABBAABBA then CDECDE or CDCDCD | 14 |
| Villanelle | ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA | 19 |
Limits Worth Knowing
- Pronunciation changes. The tool hears modern General American English. Rhymes that have drifted apart, such as love and prove in older verse, show up as slant or not at all.
- Only line endings. Internal rhyme, within a line, is not lettered. The Alliteration Finder covers repeated sounds inside lines.
- One dictionary pronunciation. A word said two ways in verse is read the usual way, with a few documented exceptions such as the -ate case above.
- Letters are arbitrary. The first sound is A whatever it is; what matters is which lines share a letter.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do you find the rhyme scheme of a poem?
- Write the sound at the end of the first line as A. Give the next line that rhymes with it A too, and a new letter to each line that does not rhyme with anything yet. Read the letters in order: ABAB, AABB and so on. The analyzer does this by pronunciation and shows its working in the table.
- What is the difference between perfect rhyme and slant rhyme?
- A perfect rhyme matches the stressed vowel and every sound after it, as in day and play. A slant rhyme, also called near or half rhyme, matches only part of that, such as the vowel in time and mind or the closing consonant in stone and gone.
- What is an eye rhyme?
- An eye rhyme is a pair of words that look like a rhyme on the page but do not sound like one, such as love and move or cough and bough. The analyzer notes them but does not count them, because it judges rhyme by sound.
- Do rhyming words have to be spelled alike?
- No. Eight and late rhyme, as do blue and through; cough and rough do not. Rhyme is a matter of sound.
- What if a line does not rhyme with any other?
- It gets a letter of its own. The tool counts such lines and reports how many have no partner, which is normal in ballads, where the first and third lines often do not rhyme.
- Why does the tool miss a rhyme in an old poem?
- Pronunciation has shifted since many classic poems were written, so some rhymes are no longer exact. The analyzer uses modern sounds and tells you when a pair is only close.
- Is my poem uploaded anywhere?
- No. The pronunciation dictionary is downloaded once from this site and the lettering runs in your browser.