How to use it
- Type one English word into Word, such as cat.
- Read Perfect rhymes for the words that share every sound from the stressed vowel to the end.
- Read Near rhymes for the words that share the stressed vowel or the ending only.
- Check Rhyme sound to see which sounds the rhymes share, and Pronunciation for the word's stress.
How a rhyme is decided
A rhyme is found from the stressed vowel in the word's pronunciation. The CMU Pronouncing Dictionary gives the American English pronunciation of each word, and the rhyme part is the stressed vowel and every sound after it. Stress digits do not count when two rhyme parts are compared.
- Perfect: cat, hat and that all end in the sound æt, so they rhyme perfectly.
- Near, same vowel: cat and cab share the vowel æ, but cab ends in b.
- Near, same ending: cat and cut both end in t, but cut has the vowel ʌ.
Syllable count and the cap
Rhymes are grouped by how many syllables their word has, counted by the vowel sounds of its pronunciation. A word such as cat has thousands of near rhymes, so each group lists its first 60 words in alphabetical order, and the Words column gives the number of all of them.
What a rhyme list does not cover
- Rhymes follow sound, not meaning. Words that rhyme may be unrelated in sense, and words with the same meaning may not rhyme.
- The sounds are American English. A British speaker may rhyme some words differently.
- A word the dictionary does not list, and a word with no vowel sound such as hmm, has no rhymes here.
Worked example: cat
Cat is K AE1 T in the dictionary, so its rhyme part is the stressed vowel AE and the T after it: the rhyme sound is -æt. Hat and that (AE1 T) rhyme perfectly with it. Cab keeps the vowel but ends in B, and cut keeps the final T but has the vowel AH1, so both are near rhymes.
| Measure | Result |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | /ˈkæt/ |
| Rhyme sound | -æt |
| Perfect rhymes | 72 |
| Near rhymes | 16,833 |
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a perfect and a near rhyme?
A perfect rhyme has the same sounds from the stressed vowel to the end, as cat and hat do. A near rhyme keeps only part of that: the same vowel, as cat and cab do, or the same ending, as cat and cut do.
Why do the lists show only some of the words?
A word such as cat has thousands of near rhymes, so each syllable count lists its first 60 words alphabetically. The Words column above each list gives the total, so you can see how many there are.
Why do words that are spelled differently rhyme?
Rhymes follow sound, not spelling. Tough and stuff rhyme, while cough and through do not, because the dictionary gives them different sounds.
What is the rhyme sound?
The rhyme sound is the part that rhymes share, written in IPA from the stressed vowel to the end. If two words show the same rhyme sound, they rhyme perfectly.
Why is my word not in the results?
The dictionary lists about 124,000 English words in their American pronunciation. Names, slang and very new words are often missing, and a word with no vowel sound, such as hmm, has no rhymes.
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. The rhymes are found in your browser. The dictionary is loaded the first time the tool needs it, and nothing you type is stored or sent.
Sources
- CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, cmudict.dict, from the cmusphinx/cmudict repository. BSD-style licence: Copyright (C) 1993-2015 Carnegie Mellon University
- Wikipedia: ARPABET, the phone symbols and their IPA values
Figures and text last checked on Tuesday, November 10, 2026.