What Is the Rhyme Scheme of a Limerick?
Quick answer: The rhyme scheme of a limerick is AABBA: lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyme with each other, and the shorter lines 3 and 4 share a different rhyme. Rhythm matters too.
A limerick rhymes AABBA. Lines one, two and five share one rhyme, and the shorter lines three and four share another. The long lines carry three stressed beats each, the short pair carry two, and the bouncing rhythm (da-da-DUM, technically anapaestic) is as much a part of the form as the rhymes.
Get the rhyme scheme right and the limerick can still fall flat, because the form is really a joke-delivery machine. Line one sets the scene, usually introducing a person and a place. Lines two to four complicate matters. Line five is the punchline, and it has to snap. Edward Lear popularised the form in his 1846 Book of Nonsense, though he often wasted line five by nearly repeating line one, a habit modern limericks have sensibly abandoned.
The shape, beat by beat
Here is the standard template.
A worked example, built to show the machinery
An original demonstration: 'A poet from Dover named Klee / Wrote sonnets while lost in the sea. / When asked why she roamed, / She said, "Fourteen lines from home / Is exactly as far as I'm free."' Lines one, two and five rhyme (Klee, sea, free), lines three and four rhyme (roamed, home), and the syllable counts run roughly 8-9 for the long lines and 5-6 for the short pair.
Notice the rhythm does the comedy's timing. The two short lines speed up like a drum roll, and the return to a long line gives the punchline room to land. If your line five limps, the joke dies even with perfect rhymes, so read every draft aloud and count the bounce.
Common mistakes and easy fixes
The first mistake is forcing rhyme at the cost of natural word order, the old 'a sandwich he ate' inversion. Modern ears hear that as clunky, so rewrite until the sentence sounds like speech. The second is choosing a rhyme-A word with too few partners; pick line one's final word only after confirming you have at least four good rhymes for it. The third is treating line five as a summary rather than a twist. The best limericks make the last word itself the surprise.
Limericks lean bawdy by tradition, but they do not have to. Clean limericks about science, history or family life win light-verse competitions constantly. Wit travels further than shock.
What poets can take from this
- Choose your A-rhyme word first and list its rhymes before writing anything else.
- Keep long lines at three strong beats and short lines at two; syllable counts can flex around that.
- Make line five a genuine twist, never a restatement of line one.
- Read drafts aloud at speed; a limerick that cannot be said in one breath needs trimming.
- Put the funniest possible word in the final position of line five.
- Avoid inverted word order for rhyme's sake; natural speech always sounds sharper.
Try it yourself
Write a limerick about a poet who takes a form far too literally, a haiku writer who only speaks in seventeen syllables, perhaps. The last word must be the joke.
Questions
How many syllables are in a limerick?
Typically eight to nine syllables in lines one, two and five, and five to six in lines three and four. The beat matters more than exact counts: three stresses in the long lines, two in the short ones.
Do limericks have to be funny?
In practice, yes. The form's rhythm creates an expectation of a punchline, and a solemn limerick almost always reads as unintentionally comic. If your subject is serious, another five-line form like the cinquain suits it better.
Who invented the limerick?
Nobody knows precisely; the form existed in folk rhyme before Edward Lear popularised it in his 1846 Book of Nonsense. The name comes from the Irish city of Limerick, though the connection is debated.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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