Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A composition in verse, in which all the lines end with the same rhyme.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A poem whose lines all end with the same rhyme.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

mono- +‎ rhyme

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Examples

  • It consists of three couplets or six-line strophes: all the hemistichs of the first are in monorhyme; in the second and following stanzas the three first hemistichs take a new rhyme, but the fourth resumes the assonance of the first set and is followed by the third couplet of No. 1, serving as bob or refrain, e.g., aaaaaa + bbbaaa + cccaaa and so forth.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • The Mukhammas, cinquains or pentastichs (Night cmlxiv.), represents a stanza of two distichs and a hemistich in monorhyme, the fifth line being the “bob” or burden: each succeeding stanza affects a new rhyme, except in the fifth line, e.g., aaaab + ccccb + ddddb and so forth.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • As the Arabs ignore blank verse, when we come upon a rhymeless couplet we know that it is an extract from a longer composition in monorhyme.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • I have not thought it necessary to preserve the monorhyme.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • I allude especially to the monorhyme, Rim continuat or tirade monorime, whose monotonous simplicity was preferred by the Troubadours for threnodies.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • The assonance mostly attempts monorhyme: in two tetrastichs it is aa + ba, and it does not disdain alternates, ab + ab + ab.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Both are built upon monorhyme, which appears twice in the first couplet and ends all the others, e g., aa + ba + ca, etc.; nor may the same assonance be repeated, unless at least seven couplets intervene.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • [FN#60] Here, as in other places, I have not preserved the monorhyme, but have ended like the English sonnet with a couplet; as a rule the last two lines contain a "Husn makta '" or climax.

    Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855

  • I allude especially to the monorhyme, Rim continuat or tirade monorime, whose monotonous simplicity was preferred by the Troubadours for threnodies.

    Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855

  • As the Arabs ignore blank verse, when we come upon a rhymeless couplet we know that it is an extract from a longer composition in monorhyme.

    Arabian nights. English Anonymous 1855

Comments

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  • T.L.S.: 'The Arabic monorhyme (only one rhyme, maintained throughout a poem) is difficult to imitate in English for obvious reasons, and even an easier rhyme scheme will often compel the translator to resort to padding or distortion.'

    January 22, 2009