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I would like to know if there are rhyming words (perfect, identical or holorhymes) for the word wolf. Having searched online only for a short while, I believe there might be a word lurking about. Gulf doesn't quite cut it.

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  • b-rhymes.com/rhyme/word/wolf
    – user66974
    Jul 2, 2015 at 6:12
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    will "Golf" do? Despite the fact it is that very "Eye rhyme" - it sounds (at least according to Google) well enough.
    – Rossitten
    Jul 2, 2015 at 6:20
  • erm.... tasmanian wolf?
    – Bookeater
    Jul 2, 2015 at 6:48
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    @Rossitten: "I played some golf beside a gulf/Until a wolf began to wulf."
    – Sven Yargs
    Jul 2, 2015 at 6:50
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    @SvenYargs For me wolf /wʊlf/ and golf /gɔlf/ have different rimes, at least in my language, while wolve /wʊlv/ is a verb so voices the final consonant. I think that in general an L before the consonant is unstable between speakers, so these rhymes are hard to come by; think how often (meaning, in how many speakers) calm /kɔlm/ and palm /pɔlm/ lose their phonemic /l/. There’s probably another way of writing that phonetically that uses a fancier vowel, but I don’t know it. However, I think the same thing happens with wolf; I just don’t know how to represent a quasi-phantom [l].
    – tchrist ♦
    Jul 2, 2015 at 15:53

3 Answers 3

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I'm afraid you're out of luck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_without_rhymes

Unless you can make do with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wulf

one of the most prolific elements in early Germanic names

Or http://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/words-that-rhyme-with/wolf.html

wolfe, wolff, woolf, wulf, wulff

Personally, these attempts to make do just confirm the original "No".

Perhaps an alternative like "canine" can give you better perspective?

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    I'm good; I'm not using it in a poem, although I'm writing many at the moment... Thank you for the links! The adjective word for wolf, I believe, is 'lupine'. Thank you once again.
    – Panglossian Oporopolist
    Jul 2, 2015 at 6:57
  • Heh. Good one. Those do rhyme.
    – Bookeater
    Jul 2, 2015 at 11:12
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Yes, there are probably loads of holorimes. For example, if you were going to a wool shop, and wanted a different wool for each day of the week you might say:

  • Do you have a wool for Friday?

... And if you were speaking to a large wolf-eating bear who only eats wolves on Fridays, you might say:

  • Do you have a wolf a Friday?

.... in the sense of Do you eat one wolf each Friday?.

The phonemic script for these in Southern Standard British English is :

  • /du ju 'hæv ə 'wʊl fə 'fraɪdeɪ/

and

  • /du ju 'hæv ə 'wʊlf ə 'fraɪdeɪ/

Of course the gaps there are only a convention to make this type of transcription easy to read. What we actually say in both cases is:

  • /duju'hævə'wʊlfə'fraɪdeɪ/

This might not work if you speak a rhotic English like General American, for example, because the word for could still have an /r/ in it!

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  • Americans are perfectly willing to delete the /r/ in for (unlike the /r/s in most words) when speaking fast.
    – Peter Shor
    Jul 2, 2015 at 14:39
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You might consider dolf, defined here as the imperative of "delve". According to the pronunciation at that site, it seems to rhyme with "wolf."

It is also listed here as meaning "a despised person," although the pronunciation is unclear.

As for holorhymes, how about:

  • She has a wool fear.
  • She has a wolf ear.
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