The following is a list of English words without rhymes, called refractory rhymes—that is, a list of words in the English language which rhyme with no other English word. The word "rhyme" here is used in the strict sense, called a perfect rhyme, that the words are pronounced the same from the vowel of the main stressed syllable onwards. The list was compiled from the point of view of Received Pronunciation (with a few exceptions for General American), and may not work for other accents or dialects. Multiple-word rhymes (a phrase that rhymes with a word, known as a phrasal or mosaic rhyme), self-rhymes (adding a prefix to a word and counting it as a rhyme of itself), and identical rhymes (words that are identical in their stressed syllables, such as bay and obey) are often not counted as true rhymes and have not been considered. Only the list of one-syllable words can hope to be anything near complete; for polysyllabic words, rhymes are the exception rather than the rule.
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Definition of perfect rhyme
Following the strict definition of rhyme, a perfect rhyme demands the exact match of all sounds from the last stressed vowel to the end of the word. Therefore, words with the stress far from the end are more likely to have no perfect rhymes. For instance, a perfect rhyme for discomBOBulate would have to rhyme three syllables, -OBulate. There are many words that match most of the sounds from the stressed vowel onwards and so are near rhymes, called slant rhymes. Ovulate, copulate, and populate, for example, vary only slightly in one consonant, and thus provide very usable rhymes for most situations in which a rhyme for discombobulate is desired. However, no other English word has exactly these three final syllables with this stress pattern. And since in most traditions the stressed syllable should not be identical—the consonant before the stressed vowel should be different—adding a prefix to a word, as be-elbow for elbow, does not create a perfect rhyme for it.
Words that rhyme in one accent or dialect may not rhyme in another. A commonplace example of this is the word of, which when stressed had no rhymes in British Received Pronunciation prior to the 19th century, but which rhymed with love in General American. (When unstressed, it's a homonym for have.) In the other direction, iron has no rhyme in General American, but many in RP. Words may also have more than one pronunciation, one with a rhyme, and one without!
Words with obscure perfect rhymes
This list includes rhymes of words that have been listed as rhymeless.
Non-rhyming English words
The majority of words with antepenultimate stress, such as animal, citizen, comedy, dangerous, and obvious, and with preantepenultimate stress, such as necessary, logarithm, algorithm and sacrificing, have no rhyme.
Masculine rhymes
Refractory one-syllable rhymes are uncommon; there may be fewer than a hundred in English. A great many end in a present or historical suffix -th, or are plural or participle forms. This list includes a few polysyllabic masculine rhymes such as oblige, which have one syllable in their rhyming part.
- adzed
- airt
- alb
- amongst
- angsts /ˈ-æŋksts/
- bilge
- borscht
- breadth, -s /ˈ-ɛdθ, -s/
- bronzed
- bulb, -s, -ed /ˈ-ʌlb, -d, -z/
- cleansed
- coolth
- corpsed
- culm
- delft
- depth, -s /ˈ-ɛpθ, -s/
- doth
- eighth
- false
- fifth, -s, -ed /ˈ-ɪfθ, -t, -s/
- filmed /ˈ-ɪlmd/
- flange
- fourths
- glimpsed /ˈ-ɪmpst/
- gouge(d)
- grilse
- (en)gulfed /ˈ-ʌlft/
- kilned
- kirsch /ˈ-ɪərʃ/
- loge
- midsts /ˈ-ɪdsts/
- morgue
- mulcts /ˈ-ʌlkts/
- ninth, -s /ˈ-aɪnθ, -s/
- oblige, -ed /ˈ-aɪdʒ, -d/
- oomph
- pierced
- prompts
- quaich
- rouged
- scarce /ˈ-ɛərs/
- sculpts /ˈ-ʌlpts/
- sowthed, southed /ˈ-aʊθt/
- sixth, -s /ˈ-ɪksθ, -s/
- spoilt
- stilb
- swoln
- torsk
- traipsed
- twelfth, -s /ˈ-ɛlfθ, -s/ The "f" in "twelfth" is commonly elided in casual speech, causing "twelfth" to rhyme with "health" and "wealth".
- unbeknownst
- vuln, -s, -ed /ˈ-ʌln, -d, -z/
- waltzed
- warmth
- whilst /ˈ-aɪlst/
- wolf, -s, -ed /ˈ-ʊlf, -t, -s/
- wolve, -s, -d /ˈ-ʊlv, -d, -z/
- worlds
- wounds
- yoicks
pork /ˈ-ɔərk/ has no rhymes in conservative RP and GA. However, the distinction between horse and hoarse has been mostly lost in younger generations, and for them and many others pork which was an exception to the normal rule, now rhymes with fork, cork, etc. (/ˈ-ɔːrk/) The OED no longer lists "/pɔək/" as an alternative pronunciation in its third edition.
Nonce words ending in -ed ('provided with') may produce other potentially refractory masculine rhymes. There are additional words which are only partially assimilated into English, such as Russian kovsh /ˈkɒvʃ/, which are refractory rhymes.
Although not meant as a complete list, there are some additional refractory rhymes in GA. Some of these are due to RP being a non-rhotic accent, and having merged rhymes formerly distinguished by /r/.
- heighth, -s /ˈ-aɪtθ, -s/
- iron /ˈ-aɪərn/
- karsts /ˈ-ɑːrsts/
Feminine rhymes
For feminine rhymes, the final two syllables must match to count as a rhyme. Once the stress shifts to the penultimate syllable, rhymeless words are quite common, perhaps even the norm: there may be more rhymeless words than words with rhymes. The following words are representative, but there are thousands of others.
- angel
- angry
- anxious
- chimney
- comment
- elbow
- empty
- engine
- foible
- foyer
- hundred(th)
- husband
- liquid
- luggage
- monster
- neutron
- nothing
- olive
- penguin
- polka
- problem
- sanction
- sandwich
- secret
- something
- zigzag