Eye Rhyme
Quick answer: Eye rhyme is a pair of words that look like they rhyme but sound different, such as love and move. Learn where eye rhymes come from and how to use them.
An eye rhyme is a pair of words that look as though they rhyme on the page but do not rhyme in the mouth: 'love' and 'move', 'cough' and 'bough', 'daughter' and 'laughter'. The spelling promises a chime that pronunciation refuses to deliver. It is sometimes called visual rhyme or sight rhyme, and it exists because English spelling froze while English sounds kept moving.
Poets meet eye rhyme in two ways: as a historical accident in old poems, where pairs that once rhymed aloud have drifted apart, and as a deliberate modern device, a wink to the reading eye in poems meant for the page. Knowing which is which changes how you read, and whether you should imitate it.
How It Works
The trick is purely visual. An invented couplet: 'She swore she would not speak of blood, / then signed her name and called it good.' On paper 'blood' and 'good' share their last four letters; read aloud, the vowels part company. A poem full of such pairs rhymes to the eye and stays silent to the ear, which can feel witty, ghostly or simply broken depending on handling.
Because the effect vanishes in performance, eye rhyme belongs to print. A poem built on it is quietly declaring that it expects to be read, not heard.
Where You Will See It
Older poetry is full of accidental eye rhymes. Shakespeare rhymed 'love' with 'prove' and 'remove' because in his English they were far closer than they are now; the Great Vowel Shift and later changes broke the pairs and left the spelling as a fossil record. Editors call these historical rhymes rather than true eye rhymes, since the poet's ear was innocent.
Deliberate eye rhyme is rarer and more playful. Eighteenth and nineteenth-century poets sometimes leaned on conventional pairs like 'wind' and 'mind' as an accepted licence, and modern poets occasionally use sight rhymes to unsettle a scheme or joke with the reader about English spelling itself.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Treat eye rhyme as a spice, not a staple. One knowing sight rhyme in a rhymed poem can add irony, especially if the mismatch echoes the poem's subject: a broken promise, a resemblance that fails. A whole scheme of them tends to read as either a stunt or a series of mistakes.
The more common craft problem runs the other way: accidental eye rhymes. If you pair 'move' with 'love' in a contest entry, a judge will hear the clash even though the page looks tidy. Always test rhymes with your voice, never your eyes alone.
What poets can take from this
- Say every rhyme pair aloud; spelling is the least reliable guide to sound in English.
- Use a deliberate eye rhyme when the poem's meaning involves things that look alike but are not.
- Do not stack multiple eye rhymes; one reads as wit, several read as error.
- When reading pre-1800 poems, assume odd rhymes were true in the poet's accent before judging them.
- Remember eye rhyme disappears in performance; keep it out of poems written for the stage.
Try it yourself
Write a short rhymed poem about two siblings who look identical but could not be more different. Use one deliberate eye rhyme at the exact moment the poem reveals the difference, and full rhymes everywhere else.
Questions
What is the difference between eye rhyme and slant rhyme?
Slant rhyme is a partial match of sound; eye rhyme is a match of spelling with no reliable match of sound at all. 'Stone' and 'stain' slant-rhyme aloud; 'love' and 'move' only look related.
Did Shakespeare use eye rhymes on purpose?
Mostly not. Many pairs that look like eye rhymes today, such as 'love' and 'prove', rhymed or nearly rhymed in Elizabethan pronunciation. They are historical rhymes broken by sound change rather than visual tricks.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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