is there any one word in the dictionary that does not rhyme with any other one word?

Answer 1

"Any ONE word...?" NO! there are MANY!


The bit about ONLY "orange" or ONLY four words (three of them color words) is catchy... but it's a myth.

By the definition used to say "orange" has no rhyme, there are MANY English words that have no rhyme, and the longer the words are, the more non-rhyming ones you find.

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The question is obviously referring to "PERFECT rhyme" (more on that in a moment). If you allow any other type of rhyme, including ones that allow a few sounds that are close but not exact matches you can find a "near rhyme" for virtually ANY English word, INCLUDING "orange" and "silver".

So for the question "are there are any English words with which no other words rhyme?" the simple answer is:

There are just a handful of ONE -syllable words that have none --I know of five (listed below)-- BUT when you look at longer words whose main stress is further from the end of the word there are MANY more (I list just a handful of them below).

To clarify, here is a definition of "perfect rhyme":

"Rhyme in which the final accented vowel and all succeeding consonants or syllables are identical, while the preceding consonants are different, for example, great, late; rider, beside her; dutiful, unbeautiful. Also called full rhyme, true rhyme."
http://www.bartleby.com/61/83/P0188300.html

Understanding this, the the accent is from the end of the word the more sounds there are that have to be exactly matched. Thus, there are an ENORMOUS number of English words with the accent at least three syllables from the end for which there is no perfect rhyme.

As a practical matter, you can usually find excellent 'near rhymes' for these words, in which MOST of the sounds are the same, and poems use these quite effectively all the time.

For example: "discombobulate" has no perfect rhyme, but "populate" and "ovulate" are good near rhymes, since they differ only slightly in one consonant in the middle. (Note that p and v are close to b in sound; 'inoculate' would not be quite as good since its /k/ sound is not as close to the /b/sound.)

So, the discussion ought really to focus on words with one or two syllables. There are only a few of the first... a great many of the second.

Of these, the most commonly mentioned as having no rhymes are the color-words orange, purple, silver. In fact, there appear to be rhymes for the last two (hirple and chilver), though some may dismiss them as only existing in some dialects, not in "standard English". "Orange" should probably still be considered as non-rhyming since the only reasonable suggestions for rhymes are "door 'inge" ("door hinge" as pronounced in certain dialects) and "sporange". But according to the Oxford English Dictionary (often considered THE authority), the only pronunciation for this word is spuh-RANJ (with the accent on the SECOND syllable), which does NOT rhyme with English "orange" (accent on the FIRST syllable).

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One syllable words -- there are only a few one-syllable words with no rhymes (though you may include "orange" for those who pronounce it as "ornj"). This list may not be complete, but it should be close:

kiln (if the n is pronounced)
month
oink
pint
valve
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Two-syllable words with the accent on the first syllable. (If the accent is on the last syllable you only need to match the very end of the word, and this is very much like finding rhymes for one-syllable words. . . simple.)

The list of well over 200 words below is my just the first few steps of my first effort, so it is VERY incomplete. Though I believe none of these can be exactly rhymed in "standard American English", I cannot vouch for every one of them.

A few considerations (that should ALWAYS be considered when working on rhymes):

1) The words below should ALL be pronounced with accent on the FIRST syllable! (Some have alternate uses of the word that are accented on the second syllable, but usually that form can be rhymed. Examples: OF-fense, DE-fense; if the accent is placed on the SECOND syllable, any word ending with -ense/-ence could work.)

2) Since pronunciation varies between dialects/accents --especially the pronunciation of vowel sounds-- so that some of these may end up having perfect rhymes in certain regions. For instance, in some dialects "awesome" rhymes with "blossom", and "auction" with "concoction".

3) English sometimes allow you to CREATE new or ad hoc words that would rhyme with some of these, such as "hatchless" for "matchless", "swordless" for "cordless". You might choose to remove some or all of the words ending in an "active suffix" like "-less".

4) This list is only of SINGLE-word rhymes; you might be able to make two-word expressions that would match. (I will, however, include accepted compound words as ONE word, e.g., "drainboard".)

5) I am excluding proper names (which are quite varied and unreliable!) from this list and from consideration as rhymes with them.

6) The list does not include other forms of the same word -- in a number of cases these would be additional 'rhymeless' words. For example, both "orbit" and "orbits" have no rhyme (not to mention the longer forms "orbiter" and "orbiting").

7) Again, these are only words lacking PERFECT rhymes, not usable near rhymes. For example, in a poem one might find "patient" works as a rhyme for "ancient", but to make a *perfect* rhyme requires a matching /n/ sound after the a.


So here's my little starter collection:

absence, absent, accent, access, actress, advent, ancient, android,angry, anklet, aphid, arid, aspect, aspen, aspirin, astral, auction, auger, auspice, autumn, avid, awesome, awkward, axle
badger, bankrupt, basic, bastard, bottom, brackish, braless, brutish,budget, bugler, bungler, butcher
campus, capsule, carbine, carpal, cashless, childish, children, chimney, chintzy, comfort, compass, concert, conference, conga, convent, cordless, coporate, country, courage, cowboy, crimson, cruelty, cudgel, culprit
damsel, decal, different, difference, digest, dirndl, dolphin, drainage, drainboard, dreadnought, ducal
earthy, empress, empty, entrance, envy, equine, errand, ethics, exit, export, extra
fascist, faucet, featured, filming, fiscal, fitful, fixate, flimsy, foible, foppish, fortune, freshness, fruitful, furor
gadget, gangster, gargle, globule, grommet
happen, hapless, harness, harshness, harvest, headache, hermit,hopeless, hospice, hubris, hungry
igloo, import, infant, influx, inkpot, inlet, input, instance, instant,insult, irksome
jackass, jaundice, justice
larva, leprous, limit, limpid, listener, lively, livestock, luckless, luggage, luscious, lustrous
market, matchless, medic, merchant, message, milner, mistress, monster, morphine, music
nephron, nimbus, nonsense, nordic
oafish, object, office, offspring, olive, opera, orange, orbit,orchid, osprey, ostrich, oval
patience, peerage, perfect, perfume, pervert, picnic, piston, pixel, pizza, plankton, poison, postage, posture, potent, portent, pressure, pretext, program, promise, pueblo, publish, pungent, punish, purchase, putrid
rascal, reflux, reject, research, rhythm, rodent, roughage, rubric
salve, satchel, sausage, secret, seepage, sequin, sergeant, serpent, shameful, sinful, sixty, slippage, smugness, snorkel, sofa, starchy, strychnine,subject, substance, suffrage
tangent, temptress, tipster, tonnage, tonsils, torpid, traipsing,transient, transit, treacle, tubule
uncial, uncle, unctuous, urchin, useful, useless
vengeance, vineyard, virile, vulgar
wallet, warble, warp, wasp, wastrel, watchful, wicked, winsome, wintry, wishful, wordless

Answer 2

There are only four common words in the English language that are nearly impossible to rhyme. What is interesting about them is that three of the four are colors, silver, orange and purple. Perhaps this is because colors demand a certain amount of originality in their naming. Note how modern crayon color namers feel compelled to issue interesting names for their creations. Recent additions to the Crayola stable of colors include, "inch worm, jazzberry jam, mango tango and wild blue yonder".

The other common word that does not have a rhyme is month. This is an Old English or Germanic word that derives from "moon", a month being roughly one cycle of the moon's phases. It was rather inconvenient for the ancients that the moon's phases do not divide evenly into the Earth's orbit around the sun. This forced them to adopt a rather artificial and somewhat unwieldy method of tracking time. Perhaps this is why we have held on to this singular, "un-rhymable" word.

Some other, less common words that have no rhymes are angst and scalp. There are also a whole raft of words ending in "-th", but some of these are number-places and thus are rather odd constructs, eighth, ninth and twelfth. There are also breadth, depth and width.

An interesting exercise in a classroom is to assign students a project of writing a poem using "silver, purple, orange and month". They will do well not to use the words in rhyming couplets. It is also a fun poser for friends and family. If you are ever confronted with the necessity of comming up with a rhyme for any of these words in a poem, the best tactic is to make up a name for a character. Dr. Suess was a master of this technique and many of his fanciful figures can be directly traced to the need to make a stanza fit a rhyme scheme.

Answer 3

Aardvark.

Answer 4

orange

Answer 5

orange or silver

Answer 6

lots of them

=)

Answer 7

...............Yes there is .................
pending on which dictionary