alliterate
Americanverb (used without object)
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to show alliteration.
In “Round and round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran,” the “r” alliterates.
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to use alliteration.
Swinburne often alliterates.
verb (used with object)
verb
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to contain or cause to contain alliteration
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(intr) to speak or write using alliteration
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of alliterate
First recorded in 1810–20; back formation from alliteration
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“And he really did alliterate like that when you talked to him.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 12, 2018
And he really did alliterate like that when you talked to him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 12, 2018
It helps that the words "latte" and "liberalism" alliterate.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2014
The real problem with the Washington Bullets name was that it didn't alliterate, and the reason it didn't alliterate was that Abe Pollin stole the Baltimore Bullets.
From Slate ● Jan. 12, 2010
All consonants alliterate with themselves, though usually sh, sp, and st agree only with the same combination.
From Old English Poems Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose by Various
“A passeggiata in pineta is just pleasure,” Mr. Pasanella alliterated, using the Italian word for walk.
From New York Times ● Jun. 2, 2022
He received innumerable complimentary and alliterated nicknames, and a match with noisy and preposterous Max Baer.
From Time Magazine Archive
But Mr. Hoover's name was alliterated with nothing but itself in the Republican talk elsewhere.
From Time Magazine Archive
Neatly alliterated with Mr. Hughes's name in the Eastern Republican powwows, was the name of Herbert C. Hoover, for Vice President.
From Time Magazine Archive
He studied carefully the mechanism of his verse and experimented endlessly with verbal and musical effects, such as repetition, and monotone, and the selection of words in which the consonants alliterated and the vowels varied.
From Brief History of English and American Literature by Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)
He was ridiculed in his own time, and has been ridiculed ever since, for the alliterating twang of the line in which he declared his feeling: "Cedant arma togæ; concedat laurea linguæ."
From The Life of Cicero Volume One by Trollope, Anthony
It is also the only alliterating syllable in the second half-line.
From Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary by Smith, C. Alphonso (Charles Alphonso)
The lines are written in pairs, and each perfect line contains three alliterating words,—two in the first part, and one in the second.
From National Epics by Rabb, Kate Milner
When the first half-line contains but one alliterating syllable, that syllable marks the first stress, rarely the second.
From Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary by Smith, C. Alphonso (Charles Alphonso)
The ‘h’ may have been carried over from the three alliterating ‘h’s.’
From Beowulf An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem by Hall, Lesslie
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
