Feminine Rhyme
Quick answer: Feminine rhyme matches a stressed syllable plus the unstressed syllables after it, as in turning and burning. Learn its soft, witty effects in poetry.
Feminine rhyme is rhyme in which the matching sounds begin on a stressed syllable and continue through one or more unstressed syllables after it: 'turning' and 'burning', 'measure' and 'pleasure', 'ocean' and 'motion'. Because the line ends on a light syllable rather than a strong beat, the rhyme falls away instead of striking, giving the verse a softened, trailing cadence. It is also called double rhyme when two syllables are involved.
Poets use feminine rhyme for two nearly opposite jobs. In lyric it makes lines flow and murmur, taking the hammer out of the endings. In comic verse the extra matched syllables become conspicuous, almost acrobatic, which is why so many jokes in rhyme land on feminine or triple endings.
How It Works
The stress lands on the second-to-last syllable and the rhyme must match from there to the end. An invented couplet: 'The tide went out and left the boats all leaning; / the town woke slow and gave the gulls their meaning.' 'Leaning' and 'meaning' match a stressed syllable plus an unstressed tail, so each line exhales at its close instead of snapping shut.
The falling ending also changes metre. An iambic pentameter line with a feminine ending carries eleven syllables, the famous hypermetrical ending of much blank verse. That extra unstressed syllable is often what makes a line sound spoken rather than declaimed.
Where You Will See It
Shakespeare's most quoted line, the opening of Hamlet's great soliloquy, ends on the unstressed tail of 'question': a feminine ending in unrhymed verse. In rhymed poetry, Thomas Hood built whole comic poems on cascading feminine rhymes, and Byron's Don Juan mines them for laughs, pairing polysyllables so ingeniously the rhyme itself becomes the wit. On the lyric side, Christina Rossetti uses feminine rhymes to soften and rock her cadences.
Songwriting uses the distinction constantly: feminine endings keep a verse liquid, and lyricists often shift to them when a melody's phrase ends on an unstressed note.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Decide what your line endings should do. If the poem needs gentleness, reverie or motion, feminine rhymes will unclench it; if it needs verdicts, they will blur it. Watch your stock of pairs, though: English has fewer feminine rhymes than masculine ones, and the -ing words are the most overworked, so 'turning/burning/yearning' territory needs care.
In comic verse, go the other way: seek outrageous multisyllable pairings and let the reader hear the effort. The visible ingenuity is the pleasure.
What poets can take from this
- Use feminine rhymes to soften endings and keep a lyric moving rather than stopping.
- Ration the -ing rhymes; they are the most predictable feminine pairs in English.
- For comedy, choose extravagant polysyllabic pairs and place the funnier word second.
- Mix feminine and masculine endings so the poem can both flow and conclude.
- Count your syllables in metrical work; feminine endings add an unstressed eleventh syllable to pentameter, which is fine if intended.
Try it yourself
Write two quatrains about water: the first using only masculine rhymes, the second only feminine rhymes. Keep the imagery parallel between them, then note which stanza feels like the sea and which like the shore, and why.
Questions
What is the difference between feminine rhyme and a feminine ending?
A feminine ending is any line that closes on an unstressed syllable, rhymed or not, common in blank verse. Feminine rhyme is when two such endings rhyme with each other, matching the stressed syllable and everything after it.
Is feminine rhyme the same as double rhyme?
Effectively yes. Double rhyme names the two-syllable case (measure/pleasure). Rhymes extending over three syllables are usually called triple rhyme, which behaves as an extension of the same principle.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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