Word.ws English Dictionary

rhymes royal

rhymes royal is the plural of rhyme royal.

Meaning of rhyme royal

Noun

rhyme royal (countable and uncountable, plural rhymes royal)

  1. (uncountable) A form of English verse consisting of seven-line stanzas of iambic pentameter having a rhyme scheme of ababbcc, first represented in English in works by Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400).
    • Perhaps the most engaging of the Rowley poems are "An Excelente Balade of Charitie," written in the rhyme royal; and "The Bristowe Tragedie," in the common ballad stanza.1898, Henry Augustin Beers, chapter 10, in 18th Century: A History of English Romanticism
  2. (countable) A single stanza of this form.
    • Chaucer for years before the Prologue to LGW had been writing heroic couplets at the close of each of his rhymes royal.1938 Jan, H. S. V. Jones, “Brief Mention”, in The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, volume 37, number 1, page 126

Questions about rhymes royal

What is rhymes royal the plural of?
Rhymes royal is the plural of rhyme royal.

Words near rhymes royal in the dictionary

  1. rhymers
  2. rhymery
  3. rhymes
  4. rhymes off
  5. rhymes out
  6. rhymes royal
  7. rhymes up
  8. rhymes-with-rich
  9. rhymes-with-riches
  10. rhymest
  11. rhymester

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rhymes royal (page history and authors); rhyme royal (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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