A type of imperfect rhyme where only part of the words rhyme with each other. The term comes from the word apocope, which just means to cut off a syllable (i.e., morn instead of morning). To work well, stressed syllables should be rhymed together.


Usually the penultimate syllable of one line is rhymed with an end rhyme:

Blah blah-diddy blah cope
Etc poop poop diggity hopeless

But this is the norm, not the rule. Ira Gershwin's song Happy Ending has an example of an internal apocopated rhyme:

Though we feel
Our lot is terrible,
It is really not unbearable;

Though I've seen that last line transcribed as:

It is real
ly not unbearable;

Which is really unbearable.

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