ASSONANCE
ASSONANCE [Stress: ‘ASS-o-nanss’]. In RHETORIC and poetics, a resemblance or correspondence of sound between syllables or words, such as the repeated vowel in easy to please and the repeated consonant pattern b–t–d in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Traditionally, the term has been reserved for vowel REPETITION alone and consonance has been reserved for consonants, but this distinction is now rare. Assonance has been described as both a kind of rhyme and an alternative to rhyme. The terms ALLITERATION, assonance, and RHYME identify kinds of recurring sound that in practice are often freely mixed together. In considering a poem, it may not be easy or useful to decide where one stops and another starts.
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ASSONANCE
