internal rhyme

American  

[in-tur-nl rahym] / ˈɪnˌtɜr nl ˈraɪm /

noun

Prosody.

1. a rhyme created by two or more words in the same line of verse.

2. a rhyme created by words within two or more lines of a verse.

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internal rhyme British  

noun

1. prosody rhyme that occurs between words within a verse line

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Etymology

Origin of internal rhyme

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

Priscilla Block, “My Bar” Top-shelf internal rhyme from Nashville, where the cheap stuff just won’t do: “Out of the corner of my eye / I see the door guy checking your ID.”

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 22, 2022

English, in “Briggflatts,” is compacted into mouthfuls crunchy with alliteration and internal rhyme.

From The New Yorker • Aug. 2, 2016

Sometimes he tends toward complex internal rhyme, but just as often he’s merely exulting.

From New York Times • Aug. 15, 2012

His poems are pitched throughout in the same fluent first person, and formally they're neat: enjambment and internal rhyme criss-cross the surfaces like ropes.

From The Guardian • Mar. 27, 2010

It is written in that favourite stanza of five lines, on which Browning has played so many variations: here, perhaps, in the internal rhyme so oddly placed, the newest and most ingenious of all.

From An Introduction to the Study of Browning by Symons, Arthur