Does broidered rhyme with whirred?

Question

Rhymezone says it doesn't rhyme, but another dictionary says it does rhyme:

Shouldn't broidered rhyme with whirred? And could you explain why it doesn't?

Both your sources look like they're machine generated, so I wouldn't trust them as far as advice on what rhymes and what doesn't. — Mozibur Ullah, Commented Mar 28, 2021 at 1:13
No, it doesn't. The "ered" in broidered is an unstressed syllable, and whirred is a stressed syllable, and generally we don't rhyme totally unstressed syllables with stressed syllables. (But even though sobered doesn't rhyme with word, we could get away with rhyming sobered with snowbird and snowbird with word, since the syllable bird in snowbird has an intermediate amount of stress on it.) — Peter Shor, Commented Mar 28, 2021 at 1:58
This Wikipedia page explains the difference between masculine and feminine rhymes. — Old Brixtonian, Commented Mar 28, 2021 at 2:06
They just about rhyme in some accents, some Scots accents for example, but not in Received Pronunciation. Note that in accents where "(em)broidered" rhymes with "whirred" both of them rhyme with "bird" but in accents where they do not rhyme "embroidered" does not rhyme with "bird". — BoldBen, Commented Mar 28, 2021 at 4:50

Henry · Accepted Answer · 2021-03-28 01:40:51Z

1

They do not rhyme:

whirred sounds like word if you have the wine-whine merger so /wɜːd/, or /ʍɜːd/ if not
broidered (perhaps embroidered is more common) is /bɹɔɪdəd/, so a different vowel sound and length at the end

answered Mar 28, 2021 at 1:40

Henry

20.4k3 gold badges54 silver badges72 bronze badges

So rhymezone.com/r/… broidered only rhymes with embroidered?
– user336599
Commented Mar 28, 2021 at 2:02
2

That depends on what counts as a rhyme when the final syllable is unstressed, but for example blundered is closer in rhyme to broidered than whirred is
– Henry
Commented Mar 28, 2021 at 2:10

Add a comment |

1 Answer 1