rhyme off
- noun
- /raɪm ɔf/
- Informal
- A spontaneous rhyme off started during the radio show.
Examples
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The winning team celebrated their victory after a close rhyme off.
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She practiced every day before the rhyme off at school.
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The students had a rhyme off during the poetry club meeting.
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Did you participate in the rhyme off last night?
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The students had a rhyme off during the poetry club meeting.
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She practiced every day before the rhyme off at school.
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Did you participate in the rhyme off last night?
Surface Forms
Morphology
rhyme + off
The noun 'rhyme' clearly signals the activity (creating rhymes), but the particle/affix 'off' does not literally mean a contest on its own. English has a productive colloquial pattern X-off (e.g., sing-off, cook-off, rap-off) that signals a contest or showdown, so a learner who recognises that pattern may infer the meaning, but the contest sense is not directly compositional from 'off' alone. Therefore the expression is partially predictable but not fully transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
The noun rhyme off comes from the idea of a contest: rhyme means making matching sounds and off is used like in 'sing-off' to show a match where people take turns making rhymes. So rhyme off means a friendly competition to create rhymes or short poems.