rime riche

n., pl., rimes riches (rēm rēsh').
Rhyme using words or parts of words that are pronounced identically but have different meanings, for example, write-right or port-deport. Also called identical rhyme.

[French : rime, rhyme + riche, rich.]

rime riche [reem reesh], a kind of rhyme (also called ‘identical rhyme’) in which the rhyming elements include matching consonants before the stressed vowel sounds. Often this means the rhyming of two words with the same sound and sometimes the same spelling but different meanings, e.g seen/scene. The term also covers word‐endings where the consonant preceding the stressed vowel sound is the same: compare/despair. An even more excessive kind of rhyme is rime très riche, in which not only the preceding consonant but also the vowel sound before that remains the same: allowed/aloud. Usually avoided in English, rimes riches are found far more often in French verse. The normal kind of English rhyme, in which the rhyming element begins only with the stressed vowel sound nearest to the end of the line, is referred to in French as rime suffisante.

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