rhyme royal

English

Alternative forms

• rime royal

Etymology

This term was reportedly first used in the mid-1800s.

Noun

rhyme royal (countable and uncountable, plural rhymes royal)

1. (uncountable, poetry) A form of English verse consisting of seven-line stanzas of iambic pentameter having a rhyme scheme of ababbcc, first represented in English in works by Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1343-1400).
   • 1898, Henry Augustin Beers, 18th Century: A History of English Romanticism, ch. 10:

     Perhaps the most engaging of the Rowley poems are "An Excelente Balade of Charitie," written in the rhyme royal; and "The Bristowe Tragedie," in the common ballad stanza.

2. (countable, poetry) A single stanza of this form.
   • 1938, H. S. V. Jones, "Brief Mention," The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 37, no. 1 (Jan.), p. 126:

     Chaucer for years before the Prologue to LGW had been writing heroic couplets at the close of each of his rhymes royal.

Synonyms

• ballade royal
• rhythm royal

References

• “rhyme royal”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.