ABSTRACT
The Oxford English Dictionary informs us that ‘Rhyme … [is] agreement in the terminal sounds of two or more words or metrical lines, such that (in English prosody) the last stressed vowel and any sound following it are the same, while the sound or sounds preceding are different. … The consonance may extend over more than one word. … Imperfect rhymes are tolerated to a large extent in English’, but imperfect rhymes are nearer to true rhymes than assonances are. ‘Assonance’, says the O.E.D., is ‘resemblance or correspondence of sound between two words or syllables’. It is characteristic of Old French, rather than of Old English verse.
