What Rhymes With Rhyme?
Perfect and near rhymes for the word rhyme, grouped by syllable, plus why its spelling hides the sound: a silent h, a y that says eye, and a silent e.
The best-known rhymes for rhyme are time, climb, crime, prime, dime, chime and slime. They all end in the same sound, “eye-m”, even though they are spelled in several different ways. The full lists are below, grouped by syllable.
Perfect rhymes for rhyme
A perfect rhyme repeats the sound from the last stressed vowel to the end of the word, while the sound before it changes. In rhyme that shared stretch is “eye-m”. What changes is the opening: r in rhyme, t in time, cl in climb, cr in crime. These come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, a free pronunciation dictionary. Names and abbreviations are left out. This is a selection; the Rhyme Finder shows every match.
One syllable
- chime
- climb
- crime
- dime
- grime
- lime
- mime
- prime
- slime
- thyme
- time
The dictionary also lists rime, but it is pronounced exactly like rhyme. That makes it the same word in another spelling, not a rhyme for it.
Two syllables, stress on the last
- sublime
Longer words that rhyme on the last beat
Most of these are compounds of time. The main stress falls on the first half, so they match rhyme only on the lighter, secondary beat of the last syllable. Many readers would not call them perfect rhymes. They work when the line’s rhythm puts a beat on -time.
- anytime
- bedtime
- daytime
- downtime
- enzyme
- lifetime
- lunchtime
- maritime
- meantime
- nighttime
- overtime
- pantomime
- paradigm
- pastime
- peacetime
- ragtime
- showtime
- sometime
- springtime
- summertime
- wartime
Say pantomime as PAN-tuh-mime and it rhymes with rhyme only if you give the last syllable a beat. If you want a different set of words to compare, the rhymes for time page starts from the other end of the pair.
Near rhymes for rhyme
Near rhymes (slant rhymes) match part of the ending but not all of it. Rhyme has plenty because its vowel, “eye”, is common, and so is its closing “m”. They are different kinds of near match, so they are listed separately. For the difference in detail, see perfect rhyme versus slant rhyme.
Same vowel, different ending
These keep the “eye” and change the last consonant. They pair with rhyme most comfortably when the line is sung or read quickly.
- child
- drive
- file
- find
- fine
- five
- guide
- ice
- kind
- life
- light
- line
- mind
- night
- price
- side
- white
- wide
Same final “m”, different vowel
These keep the closing “m” and change the vowel in front of it. The match is quieter, because the stressed vowel is what the ear listens for first.
- claim
- dream
- frame
- game
- home
- name
- room
- same
- team
- theme
Near rhymes are worth reaching for when time and crime would make a line predictable. A pair such as rhyme and life still sounds connected without feeling like a nursery-rhyme chime. That is an editorial judgement, not a rule.
Look up another word
Pronunciations: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. About the data
For near rhymes, filters and a list you can copy, use the Rhyme Finder. To compare two words you already have, try the rhyme checker.
Why “rhyme” looks nothing like it sounds
Say the word slowly and count the sounds: an “r”, then “eye”, then “m”. Now look at the letters: there are more of them than sounds. The h is silent, the y is doing the job of the vowel in eye, and the final e is silent too. A reader meeting the word for the first time would have no way to guess it.
It was not always written this way. According to Mental Floss, the word came into English from French, where it is spelled rime, and “that’s how it was spelled in English at first too.” The linguist Anatoly Liberman, writing for Oxford University Press, says that “The spelling rhyme goes back to Samuel Daniel, a once well-known poet, a contemporary of Shakespeare.” Mental Floss adds that the h and y were put in to match the Latin rhythmus and Greek rhythmos the word was traced to. Rhyme and rhythm are historically related, which is why they look alike on the page. They do not sound alike.
Same ending, different spellings
Rhyming works on sound only. Here is the same “eye-m” ending written in several ways.
| How the ending is written | Words from the lists above |
|---|---|
| -ime | time, crime, prime, sublime |
| -yme | rhyme, thyme, enzyme |
| -imb | climb |
| -igm | paradigm |
In climb the b is silent and in paradigm the g is, so neither letter affects the rhyme. In thyme the th is just a “t”. A rhyme is decided by the sounds that are left once you ignore all of that.
It also works the other way round. Some words look as if they should rhyme and do not:
- Regime ends in -ime, but it is pronounced to rhyme with cream. The dictionary gives it a different vowel from time.
- Limb looks like climb with a letter missing. It has a short “i”, as in rim, so it is not a rhyme for climb or rhyme.
- Rhythm shares the rh and the closing “m” with rhyme, but the vowel in between is different.
Pairs that look alike but sound different are a trap for anyone who checks a rhyme by looking at the page. The test that always works is to say both words aloud and listen from the stressed vowel onward. Love and move fail it in the same way, which the page on words that rhyme with love covers. If you are unsure about a pair, the rhyme checker compares the sounds directly. For more word families, see the rhyming words list by sound family, or start from the main rhyme lookup.
Where the word lists come from
Rhymes are matched from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, a free pronouncing dictionary of English. Accents differ, so you may hear some pairs differently, and these lists leave out proper names and abbreviations. The same data powers the Rhyme Finder, which shows every match instead of this short selection.