Slant rhymes
A slant rhyme shares most of a word’s sound without matching it exactly — mind and time, love and enough. They’re the quiet engine of modern lyrics: where perfect rhymes run dry, slant rhymes keep the line moving.
Perfect vs. slant, in one line
A perfect rhyme matches every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end — cat / hat, nation / vibration. A slant rhyme keeps part of that and lets the rest drift: it might share the vowel (time / mind) or the closing consonants (dark / heart) but not both. The more the two words overlap, the stronger the rhyme lands.
Slant rhymes in the wild
How we rank them
Every word page here lists perfect rhymes first, then slant rhymes ordered by closeness — we compare the shared run of sounds at the end of each word, so the near-misses that feel most like a rhyme sit at the top instead of being lost in an alphabetical dump. That’s the difference between a list and a usable rhyme.
Try it on a word that’s impossible to rhyme perfectly.
Slant rhyme FAQ
What is a slant rhyme?
A slant rhyme — also called a near rhyme, half rhyme, or oblique rhyme — is a pair of words that share some but not all of their ending sound. 'Mind' and 'time' are slant rhymes: same vowel, different final consonant. A perfect rhyme, by contrast, matches every sound from the last stressed vowel onward.
Are slant rhymes 'real' rhymes?
Yes. They've been used deliberately for centuries — Emily Dickinson built her style on them — and they're the backbone of modern rap, pop, and folk. The ear accepts a shared vowel or a shared ending consonant as a rhyme, especially when the words land on the beat.
Why do rappers use slant rhymes so much?
Perfect rhymes run out fast, and they can sound predictable. Slant rhymes multiply your options, let you keep a thought going instead of bending it to fit, and make room for multisyllabic chains. The trade-off is control: the closer the slant, the stronger the rhyme feels.
How do I find slant rhymes for a word?
Search any word here and scroll past the perfect rhymes to the 'Slant & near rhymes' section — they're ranked by how close they sound, so the most usable ones come first. It works even for words with no perfect rhyme at all.