A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the ends of lines, written with letters so that lines that rhyme share the same letter. Two lines that rhyme in a row are AA. Lines that alternate are ABAB. A whole verse on one sound is AAAA.
| Scheme | Name | Pattern |
|---|---|---|
| AABB | Couplets | Lines rhyme in pairs |
| ABAB | Alternate rhyme | Lines 1 and 3, 2 and 4 rhyme |
| ABBA | Enclosed rhyme | Outer lines rhyme around a middle pair |
| AAAA | Monorhyme | Every line on one sound |
The sections that follow show how to label any poem or song, the schemes you’ll meet most and how rap stretches the same idea with rhymes inside lines and across several syllables.
How to label a rhyme scheme
Give the first end sound the letter A, give each new sound the next letter, and reuse a letter whenever a sound comes back. You label the sound, not the spelling, so “through” and “blue” share a letter even though they look different.
- Read the last word of line one. Call its sound A.
- Move to the next line. Same sound? It’s A again. New sound? It’s B.
- Keep going. Every new sound gets the next letter: C, D and so on.
Here’s a four-line example with its labels:
I wake up early when the city is gray (A)
I grab my headphones and I’m on my way (A)
The train is crowded and the music is loud (B)
I’m rapping quietly inside the crowd (B)
That’s AABB. If a pair is close but not exact, like “gray” and “made”, most readers still give them the same letter, because they share a vowel sound. That kind of rhyme is called a slant rhyme.
Common rhyme schemes
A few schemes cover most poems and songs. Some name a pattern for a few lines, and others name a whole poem form.
| Scheme | Name | Pattern | Where you’ll see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| AABB | Couplets | Rhyming pairs | Children’s books, pop choruses, beginner rap |
| ABAB | Alternate rhyme | Alternating sounds | Ballads, hymns, Shakespeare’s sonnets |
| ABBA | Enclosed rhyme | A pair wrapped in a pair | Italian (Petrarchan) sonnets |
| AAAA | Monorhyme | One sound throughout | Rap verses, chants |
| ABCB | Ballad stanza | Only lines 2 and 4 rhyme | Folk ballads, song lyrics |
| AABBA | Limerick | Two long pairs, a short pair, back to A | Limericks |
| ABA BCB CDC | Terza rima | Each middle line sets up the next stanza | Dante’s Divine Comedy |
| ABAB CDCD EFEF GG | Shakespearean sonnet | Three alternating quatrains and a couplet | Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets |
The letters reset with each poem, not with each stanza, unless a writer labels them separately. A sonnet’s final GG couplet is the 13th and 14th lines rhyming on a new sound.
Some forms also repeat whole lines, not just sounds. A villanelle uses only two rhyme sounds across 19 lines and brings back two refrain lines again and again, which is why villanelles feel like a loop. Forms like that show how much a rhyme scheme shapes the mood of a poem: tight schemes feel formal or obsessive, loose ones feel conversational. Picking a scheme is picking a feeling before you’ve written a word.
Rhyme scheme examples
Here are the three schemes you’ll meet most, each with a short example. They’re also the three schemes in the game on this site, where rhyming words share a colour on the beat.
AABB
AABB rhymes lines in pairs, which makes it the easiest scheme to hear. You set up a sound and resolve it straight away, so the ear gets a reward every two lines.
The beat comes in and I start to nod (A)
I don’t need a plan, I just need a squad (A)
We rap on the corner till the lights come on (B)
We rap through the night till the night is gone (B)
Yes, AABB is a rhyme scheme, and it’s the one most beginners use without knowing its name. It’s also called couplet rhyme, since each rhyming pair is a couplet.
ABAB
ABAB alternates two sounds, so you hold one rhyme while you set up the next. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 opens with an ABAB quatrain:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (A)
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: (B)
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (A)
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: (B)
“Temperate” and “date” rhyme on their last syllable here, a common move in older English poetry. ABAB feels more like a conversation than AABB, because each rhyme answers a line from two lines back.
The delay is the point. In AABB the rhyme arrives right away, so the verse feels tidy. In ABAB the listener holds the first sound in mind for a line before it comes back, which builds a small tension and then releases it. Songwriters use ABAB for verses that tell a story, because the alternating sounds keep the lines moving forward instead of stopping every two lines.
AAAA
AAAA puts every line on one sound, which is hard to keep up and impressive when you pull it off.
I’ve been on the mic since I was nine (A)
Every single verse, every single line (A)
Stay on the beat and I’m doing just fine (A)
Four bars deep and it’s still on time (A)
Notice “time” isn’t an exact match for “nine”, “line” and “fine”. It shares the vowel, which is enough on a beat. Rappers lean on near rhymes like that to keep a monorhyme going.
How to find the rhyme scheme of a poem or song
Read each line’s last word out loud and mark the sounds, not the spelling. Reading silently is how people miss rhymes like “great” and “weight”, or split pairs like “love” and “move” that look alike but don’t sound alike.
- Read each line ending aloud. Write the last word in a column.
- Label the sounds A, B, C in the order they appear.
- Group by stanza. Look for a pattern that repeats every four lines, or a form like 14 lines ending in a couplet.
- Watch for eye rhymes. Words that look like rhymes but sound different, such as “cough” and “though”, get different letters.
For a song, use a lyric sheet and listen at the same time. Singers bend vowels, and a pair that looks off on paper can rhyme cleanly in the recording.
Then check whether the pattern holds. A real rhyme scheme repeats: if the first stanza is ABAB, the next usually runs CDCD, with new sounds in the same shape. If the letters look random, the writer may be using free verse with occasional rhymes, or rhyming inside lines rather than at the ends. Free verse has no fixed rhyme scheme at all, and that’s a valid answer too.
Rhyme schemes in rap
Rap uses the same letters, but rhymes often fall inside lines and across several syllables, not just at the end. A rap verse can be AABB on the surface and still have three or four extra rhymes in every bar. These three habits explain most of it.
Rap also stretches schemes over time. A poet might switch sounds every two lines, while a rapper can hold one sound, AAAA, for eight or sixteen bars, then switch to a new sound for the next section. Listeners hear that switch as a shift in the verse, almost like a new paragraph.
End rhymes on beat four
In most rap the strongest rhyme lands on the last beat of the bar. A bar is four beats, and the fourth beat carries the end rhyme, so the scheme you hear lines up with the beat you nod to.
Ball on the beat and I’m ready to go (A)
Every word that I say is a part of the show (A)
That’s why the game on this site puts the rhyme word on beat four: it’s where the scheme and the rhythm meet.
Multisyllable chains
Rappers stretch a scheme by rhyming two or three syllables in a row and repeating the chain. Instead of one rhyming word, a whole phrase rhymes.
I keep it on paper, I’ll read it back later
They told me to wait up, I’m already greater
“Paper”, “later” and “greater” share the “ay-er” sound across two syllables. A chain like that can run for eight bars, and the letter stays A the whole time.
Internal rhymes inside the scheme
Internal rhymes add extra hits inside the line without changing the end scheme.
I stay in my lane and I play through the pain (A)
“Stay” and “play” rhyme inside the line, and “lane” and “pain” rhyme too, but the scheme only counts the end word. Internal rhymes are why a rap verse sounds denser than a poem with the same letters.
Hear rhyme schemes on a beat
You can hear AABB, ABAB and AAAA in the game, where rhyming words share a colour. Pick a scheme, set a slow beat and watch the colours: two blues then two reds is AABB, blue-red-blue-red is ABAB, and all one colour is AAAA. Saying the scheme out loud on a beat teaches it faster than labelling it on paper. Play a round with each scheme now.
Rhyme scheme FAQ
Quick answers about rhyme schemes.
What is the most popular rhyme scheme? AABB and ABAB are two of the most common rhyme schemes in English poems and songs. AABB is easier to hear, so it dominates children’s books, chants and beginner rap.
What is a two-line rhyme called? A two-line rhyme is called a couplet. When a poem is made of rhyming pairs, its scheme is AABB, and the pairs are called rhyming couplets.
What is the rhyme scheme of a sonnet? A Shakespearean sonnet rhymes ABAB CDCD EFEF GG: three alternating quatrains and a closing couplet. An Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet usually opens with ABBAABBA.