Rhyme scheme checker

How rhyme schemes are written

Each new rhyme sound gets the next letter of the alphabet, and every line that shares that sound gets the same letter. Frost's lines ending know, though, here, snow make AABA: three share a sound, though they're spelled three ways, and the third line rhymes with nothing. A line like that still gets a letter of its own, so a ballad stanza where only lines two and four rhyme is ABCB.

Common schemes

• AABB: rhyming couplets, as in many nursery rhymes and ballads.
• ABAB: alternate rhyme, common in quatrains and hymns.
• ABBA: enclosed rhyme, the opening of a Petrarchan sonnet.
• ABAB CDCD EFEF GG: the Shakespearean sonnet.

Questions

How does it decide two lines rhyme?

By sound, not spelling. It looks up how each line's last word is pronounced (in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary) and compares them from the last stressed vowel on, so know and though rhyme and love and move don't. Near rhymes such as home and stone count, and so does a rhyme on a last, unstressed syllable, as in Dickinson's me and immortality.

Why didn't it catch a rhyme I meant?

Usually because one of the words isn't in the dictionary (a name, or a word of your own), so it's compared by spelling instead, or because the rhyme rests on an older pronunciation, like Blake's eye and symmetry. In the full editor you can link two lines by hand and the scheme updates.

Is my poem saved or sent anywhere?

No. The checking happens in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.