how come nothing rhymes with silver?

Answer 1

No special reason -- and once you see that there are actually MANY such words, the question may cease to bother you.

For starters, let's be clear that we are only talking about "PERFECT" rhyme here --defined something like this:

"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

If you allow a little bit of freedom (as poetry often does) and use "near rhyme" in which MOST, but not all of these sounds match exactly, you might say that there is no such thing as a word that does not rhyme.

But in the case of PERFECT rhyme, non-rhyming words like "silver" and "purple" are actually rather COMMON.

What is truly rare is ONE-syllable words with no perfect rhymes. I know of fix or six (listed below).

But when you look at longer words whose main stress is further from the end of the word there are MANY that have no perfect rhyme (I list just a handful of them below). That's because stress (word accent) is PART of "rhyming" (as you can see in the definition of "perfect rhyme" above). So, as the stress moves further from the end of the word --since you must match all sounds from the stress on -- the number of sounds to be matched increases.

As a result, if the accent falls three syllables back or more, NOT rhyming is very common. (We don't necessarily notice this, because there are usually "near rhymes" that work quite well.)

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).

_______________

One syllable words. This list may not be complete, but it should be close:

kiln (if the n is pronounced)
month
oink
pint
valve


You might also include "orange" here for those who pronounce it "ornj". (Others pronounce it as two syllables. Here again it has no real rhymes... unless you allow a dialectal pronunciation of "door hinge" [dor'inge])

________________

"Two-syllable rhymes" -- that is, words of two or more syllables with the accent on the second to last syllable (first syllable of two-syllable words). For conveneince I'm looking at words that are just two syllables long. 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 (and I might have made some silly mistakes).

Do note that some of these MIGHT rhyme in SOME English dialects, not in others. Also, I'm ignoring proper names (which are so diverse they really complicate things), and rhymes created by combining two words.

(Remeber -- All words in this list should be pronounced with accent on the FIRST syllable, even if the word is used in another way with an accent on the last syllable!)

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

I am not sure what kind of an answer you are looking for but here are some;

Nothing rhymes with silver because;
1-it is not as valuable as gold.
2-rainbow does not carry that color
3-the color wanted some attention

Pick the one you like most.

Answer 3

silver in the sky ,shining so bright,twinkling like radar sight,i think its alright,there u go its all in the mind,silver has many rhyme..
or if not check out p diddy,snoop dogg,jay z,busta rhyme,madonna,they might have a nice rhyme to diva with silver...its all in the mind brother

Answer 4

No words in the english language rhyme with silver, orange, purple. Maybe there's more but I can't think of them now.

Answer 5

because that is the way it is. Something close to that is "pilfer". It just happened by coincidence. Nobody purposely made sure that nothing rhymes with silver

Answer 6

Silver - Liver - Delver - Sliver (half-rhyme) - Salver (half rhyme)

Orange - Door Hinge (rhyming phrase) - Lozenge (half rhyme)

Purple - Hirple (British word) Curple - (Scottish word)

Answer 7

because silver is one of the few words in the english language that doesn't have any rhymes. Some other English words with no rhymes include "orange" and "purple."

Answer 8

English is very poor in rhymes compared to many other languages. That may be why so much great English poetry (like "Paradise Lost") is in blank verse (metrical but unrhymed) or, more recently, free verse (not metrical and not rhymed). You wanna rhyme, write in Italian :-)

Answer 9

Because it doesn't just like nothing rhyme with Purple.
Wow! Interesting question...

Answer 10

In common language simply does not have any perfect rhymes. One that comes close, in appearance and possibly sound) is Chilvers (a surname).

Answer 11

ha! didn't no that.. hmm ill have to find one that does! i found that orange rhymes with door hinge and purple rhymes with hurtful..=P i'll have to try to find one that rhymes with silver..