rhyme
/ɹaɪm/
"rhyme" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“rhyme” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,800 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #13,800
- frequency rank, English
- 5
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 9
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Rhyming verse (poetic form)
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | rhyme |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɹaɪm/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #13,800 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 9 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “rhyme” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for rhyme is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɹaɪm/. Corpus data places it at rank #13,800 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for rhyme, with forms such as "hryme", "rhhyme", and "rhmye". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 9 confusable-pair relationships, "rye", "Rome", "Rhys", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English rim, rime, ryme (“identical letters or sounds in words from the vowel in their stressed syllables to their ends; measure, meter, rhythm; song, verse, etc., with rhyming lines”), from Anglo-Norman rime, ryme (“identical letters or sounds … The correct English form is rhyme, spelled R-H-Y-M-E.
Definition
- 1Rhyming verse (poetic form)
- 2A thought expressed in verse; a verse; a poem; a tale told in verse.
- 3A word that rhymes with another.
- 4A word that rhymes with another.
- 5Rhyming: sameness of letters or sounds of part of some words.
- 6The second part of a syllable, from the vowel on, as opposed to the onset.
- 7An instance of rapping; a rapped verse; a line or couple lines of rapping; a hip hop song.
- 8A rapper's oeuvre, lyricism or skill.
- 9Number.
Etymology
From Middle English rim, rime, ryme (“identical letters or sounds in words from the vowel in their stressed syllables to their ends; measure, meter, rhythm; song, verse, etc., with rhyming lines”), from Anglo-Norman rime, ryme (“identical letters or sounds in words from the vowel in their stressed syllables to their ends; song, verse, etc., with rhyming lines”) (modern French rime); further etymology uncertain, possibly either: * from Latin rhythmus (“rhythm”), from Ancient Greek ῥῠθμός (rhŭthmós, “measured motion, rhythm; regular, repeating motion, vibration”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *srew- (“to flow; a stream”); or * borrowed from Frankish *rīm (“number, order, sequence, series, row of identical things”) (whence Old English rīm (“number, enumeration, series”)), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂rey- (“to arrange; to count”) and *h₂er- (“to fit, put together; to fix; to slot”). Cognates * Ancient Greek ἀριθμός (arithmós, “number”) * Dutch rijm (“rhyme”) * Middle Low German rīm (“rhyme”) * Old Frisian rīm (“number, amount, tale”) * Old High German rīm (“series, row, number”) (modern German Reim (“rhyme”)) * Old Irish rīm (“number”) * Old Norse rím (“calculation, calendar”) (Icelandic rím (“rhyme”), Norwegian rim (“rhyme”), Swedish rim (“rhyme”)) * Welsh rhif (“number”)
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hryme,rhhyme,rhmye,rhyem,rhymme,rhyyme,rrhyme,ryhme
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of rhyme - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "rhyme"?
What does "rhyme" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "rhyme"?
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Using “rhyme”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is R-H-Y-M-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɹaɪm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “rye” - see the side-by-side comparison. rhyme vs rye
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.