Rhyme schemes explained: how the letters work, with examples

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the ends of lines, written as letters: each new rhyme sound gets the next letter of the alphabet, and lines that rhyme share a letter. ABAB means lines one and three rhyme with each other, and lines two and four rhyme with each other. This guide covers the common patterns, the schemes behind well-known forms, and a practical way to write to one, with the rhyme finder doing the hunting for rhyming words.

How the letters work

Work down the poem from the top. The first line's end sound is A. If the next line ends on a new sound, it is B; if it rhymes with the first, it is A again. Keep going, giving the next unused letter to every new sound. Here is a quatrain I wrote to show the pattern:

• The kettle hums its morning tune (A)
• the window fogs with breath and steam (B)
• the cat has claimed the chair by noon (A)
• and half the house is still a dream (B)

That is ABAB. Two refinements are worth knowing. A line that rhymes with nothing still gets its own letter, sometimes written as X, so a ballad stanza can be written ABCB or XAXA. And a refrain, a whole line that repeats, is often marked with a capital letter and a number, such as A1 and A2. Each line above also has eight syllables, which you can confirm with the syllable counter; keeping line lengths steady matters as much as the rhymes.

Common stanza patterns

• AABB (couplets): lines rhyme in pairs. It is direct and memorable, the pattern of many nursery rhymes and picture books, and of the heroic couplets of 18th-century poets such as Alexander Pope.
• ABAB (alternate rhyme): the rhymes interlock, which carries the reader across the stanza instead of pausing every two lines.
• ABCB (ballad stanza): only the second and fourth lines rhyme. It is the pattern of traditional ballads and many hymns and songs, and it is forgiving to write because only half the lines need a rhyme.
• ABBA (enclosed rhyme): an outer pair wraps an inner one, which gives a closed, circling feel.
• AAAA (monorhyme): every line on one sound. It can be striking in a short burst but becomes tiring over a long poem.

Here is an ABCB stanza of my own, where only the second and fourth lines rhyme:

• We took the long road into town,
• the hedges white with frost,
• and counted every gate we passed
• and every one we lost.

Schemes in fixed forms

• Limerick: five lines rhymed AABBA, with the short third and fourth lines rhyming together. For example: A baker who lived in Dundee / put salt where the sugar should be; / the guests got a shock / and fled round the block, / and now he just sells cups of tea.
• Shakespearean (English) sonnet: 14 lines rhymed ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, three quatrains and a closing couplet, usually in iambic pentameter.
• Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet: an eight-line octave rhymed ABBAABBA, then a six-line sestet, commonly CDECDE or CDCDCD, with a turn in the argument between them.
• Villanelle: 19 lines on only two rhyme sounds, five tercets rhymed ABA and a closing quatrain rhymed ABAA, with two refrains that alternate as the last line of each tercet and come together at the end.
• Terza rima: interlocking tercets, ABA BCB CDC and so on, where each stanza's middle line sets up the next stanza's rhyme. Dante used it for the Divine Comedy.

Not every form rhymes. Haiku and most free verse do not, as Haiku rules and examples: syllables, season words and the cut explains.

Rhyme schemes in songs

Songs use the same patterns but bend them. Verses are often ABCB or AABB, and choruses frequently repeat a line rather than rhyme it. Songwriters lean heavily on slant rhymes, where the vowels match but the consonants do not, because in singing the vowel is what the listener hears; Perfect rhymes vs slant rhymes: what counts as a rhyme covers the difference. Internal rhymes, which fall inside a line rather than at the end, add momentum and are especially common in rap, where a rhyme may run across several syllables at once.

How to write to a scheme

The trap with any rhyme scheme is letting it write the poem for you: twisting the word order to land on a rhyme, or choosing a word only because it fits the sound. A process that avoids it:

• Write the meaning first. Draft what each stanza needs to say in plain sentences, ignoring rhyme.
• Put the important words at the line ends. The end of a line is the strongest position, so the word you most want heard belongs there. Then look up its perfect and near rhymes in the rhyme finder.
• Keep hard words away from line ends. If a line wants to end on a word with almost no rhymes, such as month, purple or orange, move it into the middle of the line instead.
• Allow near rhymes. Most modern readers accept them, and they multiply your options.
• Read it aloud. Check that the stresses fall naturally and the line lengths stay consistent; an uneven beat is more noticeable than an imperfect rhyme.

If you are stuck for a subject in the first place, the story prompt generator can supply one, and the synonym finder helps when a rhyming word is right in sound but slightly wrong in meaning.