Double rhyme

The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Double rhyme

Double rhyme: Feminine rhyme involving two syllables in which the rhyming stressed syllable of each word is followed by an identical unstressed syllable. Double rhyme is often used as a synonym for feminine rhyme but is better classified as a type of feminine rhyme.

EXAMPLES: Sonic / tonic and rowing / showing are double rhymes, as is glider / divider, because each pair of words has a rhyming stressed syllable followed by an identical unstressed syllable that ends the word. The first and third lines and the second and fourth lines of George Dillon’s poem “The World Goes Turning” (1926) exemplify double rhyme:

The world goes turning,

Slowly lunging,

Wrapped in churning

Winds and plunging

Rains.