internal rhyme
1
7.3
- noun
- /ɪnˈtɜrnəl raɪm/
- Literature
:
rima interna
- Similarly, she uses internal rhymes to maintain balance, as in the references to "root" and "fruit" (1.72) or in the phrase "Such day, such way" (1.74).
Examples
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In the line "The cat sat on the mat," the words 'cat' and 'mat' create an internal rhyme.
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And some nice little internal rhymes too, I think.
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It's an example of an internal rhyme.
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I mean, there is of course rhyming, internal rhyming and a metrical measure that's going on that has to be kept whole.
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Why did she scoff at the rhythmic poems he'd memorized as a schoolboy and then go wild over some silly internal rhyme scheme?
Fiction book (1994) -
The poet skillfully employed internal rhyme to enhance the musical quality of her verses.
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Recognizing internal rhyme can deepen your appreciation for the artistry in poetry.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly built from 'internal' (located within) + 'rhyme' (matching of sounds), so a learner can infer it denotes a rhyme occurring inside a line rather than at its end. This is a literal, compositional phrase and the construction is cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should understand it.
Etymology
Internal rhyme comes from poetry: internal means 'inside' and rhyme means words that sound alike. Imagine two words echoing each other in the middle of one line of a poem, so the name explains 'a rhyme that happens inside a single line'.