cynghanedd

/ kʌŋˈhanɛð /

noun

1. a complex system of rhyme and alliteration used in Welsh verse

Word History and Origins

Origin of cynghanedd¹

from Welsh

Example Sentences

In fact, another Welsh echo in the poem is that of the verse-form cynghanedd, which translates literally as "harmony": as a metaphor, this is broadly suggestive of the poem's various overlapping effects, which are not only aural, as here, but visual and philosophical – wing and horizon, ocean and beach, future and past, the different time-zones.

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Goronwy Owen wrote all his poetry in the cynghanedd, and his work gave the old metres a new life.

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They all wrote for the most part in cynghanedd, and the work of nearly all of them is marked by correctness rather than by poetical inspiration.

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The former are founded on elaborate rules of Cynghanedd or consonance, which term includes alliteration and rhyme, and every imaginable correspondence of consonant and vowel sounds, reduced to a system which Welsh-speaking Welshmen profess to be able to appreciate, and no doubt really can, though it is not easily understood by the rest of the world. 

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The curious little song, which is all that remains of Jenkins’s poetry, seems to show indications of a feeling for internal rhymes and something like a rudimentary Cynghanedd, but there is not enough of it to reduce to any definite rules. 

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