A slant rhyme is a pair of words with similar but not identical sounds, like time and mine, or worm and swarm. It’s also called a half rhyme, near rhyme, off rhyme or oblique rhyme. The words match on part of their sound, usually the vowel or the final consonant, but not on both.
Poets use slant rhyme to avoid sounding sing-song, and rappers use it constantly because it opens up far more words than perfect rhyme allows. Below are the two kinds of slant rhyme, how they compare with perfect rhyme, examples from poetry and rap, and a simple way to find your own.
Two kinds of slant rhyme
Slant rhymes either keep the vowel and change the consonant, or keep the consonant and change the vowel. Each kind gets its sound from a different device.
| Kind | What matches | Example | Device behind it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vowel match | The stressed vowel sound | game and made, time and mine | Assonance |
| Consonant match | The final consonant sounds | worm and swarm, lamp and limp | Consonance |
Vowel-matching slant rhyme is the kind you hear most in songs and rap. The vowel carries the note when you sing or rap, so a matching vowel sounds like a rhyme even when the last consonant changes.
Consonant-matching slant rhyme is quieter. The ear catches the shared ending more than a match, which makes it popular with poets who want a rhyme to land softly.
Both kinds depend on the stressed syllable. In “remember” and “September” the stressed vowel and everything after it match (“em-ber”), so they’re a perfect rhyme. In “remember” and “never” the stressed vowel matches but the ending changes from “mber” to “ver”, so they’re a slant rhyme. When you test a pair, say both words out loud and listen to the stressed part first.
Slant rhyme vs perfect rhyme
A perfect rhyme matches everything from the stressed vowel to the end of the word, and a slant rhyme matches only part of it. “Sky” and “high” is a perfect rhyme: same vowel, same ending. “Sky” and “time” is a slant rhyme: same vowel, different ending.
Perfect rhymes hit harder and feel more finished. Slant rhymes feel looser, and they give you more choices. “Orange” famously has almost no perfect rhymes, but slant rhymes like “porridge” and “storage” work fine once you stop looking for an exact match.
The difference shows up in numbers too. In the rhyme generator on this site, “money” has only 5 perfect rhymes, among them honey, funny and sunny. Its near rhymes run into the dozens, from country and buddy to hungry and study. A writer who only accepts perfect rhymes has five ways to finish a line about money. A writer who accepts slant rhymes has more than fifty.
Slant rhyme examples in poetry
Emily Dickinson used slant rhyme so often that it became part of her style. Her poem “Hope is the thing with feathers” pairs “soul” with “all”:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
“Soul” and “all” share the final “l” sound but not the vowel, so it’s a consonant-matching slant rhyme. Dickinson’s near misses keep her short poems from sounding like nursery rhymes. Readers in her time expected tidy perfect rhymes, and many of her poems were “corrected” by editors after her death to make the rhymes cleaner. Modern editions restore the slant rhymes she chose.
Wilfred Owen took the idea further in “Strange Meeting”, written during the First World War. He paired words that share all their consonants but change the vowel, like “escaped” and “scooped”, and “groined” and “groaned”. That technique is called pararhyme, and it gives the poem an uneasy, unfinished sound.
Why rappers use slant rhymes
Rappers lean on slant rhymes because the ear follows the vowel, so near matches sound right on a beat and open up far more words. When you rap, you stretch the vowel and clip the consonant. A word like “game” becomes “gaaay-m”, and anything with that “ay” sound, from “made” to “pain”, sounds like a rhyme.
I’ve been grinding all day, never stopping to wait
Every bar that I make is a bar that I take
“Day”, “wait”, “make” and “take” aren’t all perfect rhymes, but on a beat they sound like one family. That’s the real reason rappers rarely get stuck: the vowel gives them dozens of options for every line.
They said I couldn’t do it, now I’m living the dream
Every time that I see it, it’s as good as it seems
“Dream” and “seems” share the long “ee” vowel and differ at the end. No one listening on a beat would call that a miss.
Are slant rhymes lazy? No. Choosing a slant rhyme over a forced perfect one is a craft decision, and a large share of the rhymes in modern rap are slant rhymes on purpose.
How to find slant rhymes
Say the word, find its stressed vowel and list words that share that vowel. That’s the whole method, and it works for any word.
- Find the stressed vowel. Say the word slowly. In “money” it’s the “uh” in “mon”.
- Change the ending. Keep “uh” and swap what follows: “honey” is perfect, but “country”, “buddy” and “hungry” are slant rhymes.
- Check the near rhymes in a rhyme generator. The near-rhymes list shows words with the same vowel sound and a different ending, so you can pick by meaning instead of by sound.
Practise one word a day: list ten slant rhymes for it, then rap eight bars landing a different one on each beat four.
Consonant-matching slant rhymes take the opposite route. Keep the final consonants and change the vowel: “lamp” gives you “limp” and “lump”, and “worm” gives you “warm” and “swarm”. They’re subtler on a beat, so save them for lines where you want the rhyme to land quietly.
Slant rhyme FAQ
Quick answers about slant rhyme.
Are slant rhymes lazy? No, slant rhymes aren’t lazy. Poets from Emily Dickinson onward chose them on purpose, and rappers use them to keep flow natural instead of forcing words into exact matches.
Is near rhyme the same as slant rhyme? Yes, near rhyme and slant rhyme are the same thing. Half rhyme, off rhyme, imperfect rhyme and oblique rhyme are other names for it.
What is the hardest word to rhyme? “Orange” is the usual answer, because it has almost no perfect rhymes in English. Slant rhymes solve it: “porridge”, “storage” and “door hinge” all work on a beat.