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Words that rhyme with second — 109 rhymes by quality | Rhyme Land
RhymeLand

the rhymes and the songs that used them

Words that rhyme withsecond

feminine
Masculine

Ends on a stressed syllable — a one-syllable rhyme, or a multisyllable word whose primary stress lands last. The rhyme hits the final beat, the way most rhymes in songs do.

Examples

love · dove · today · believe · forgot

Feminine this word

Ends with an unstressed syllable trailing the stressed one — always at least two syllables. The rhyme lands a beat earlier and trails off softly.

Examples

river · mother · follow · breaking · mountain

Masculine and feminine endings rarely sing together (the rhyme lands on a different beat), so they're kept apart here.

 vowel EH coda K
2
What it is
  1. The syllables' vowel sounds are identical.
  2. The sounds after the vowels (if any) are identical.
  3. The syllables begin differently.
How it feels
  1. Perfect
  2. Family
  3. Additive / Subtractive
  4. Assonance
  5. Consonance
resolvedunresolved
Example

cat / hat — same AE vowel, same T ending

Source
Berklee College of Music's songwriting method (Pat Pattison)
2 syllables
beckoned1reckoned2
4
What it is
  1. The syllables' vowel sounds are identical.
  2. The sounds after the vowels come from the same phonetic family (e.g. T↔D, P↔B, M↔N).
  3. The syllables begin differently.
How it feels
  1. Perfect
  2. Family
  3. Additive / Subtractive
  4. Assonance
  5. Consonance
resolvedunresolved
Example

cat / pad — AE vowel; T and D are both stops

Family chart
PlosivesFricativesNasals
VoicedbdgvTHzzhjmnng
Unvoicedptkfthsshch

Each column is a family pair — same place + manner, only the voicing differs.

Source
Berklee College of Music's songwriting method (Pat Pattison)
2 syllables
threatened1weaponed4deadenedreddened
7
What it is
  1. The syllables' vowel sounds are identical.
  2. The sounds after the vowels are identical, with one extra consonant on one side.
  3. The syllables begin differently.
How it feels
  1. Perfect
  2. Family
  3. Additive / Subtractive
  4. Assonance
  5. Consonance
resolvedunresolved
Example

love / loved — extra D on one side

Source
Berklee College of Music's songwriting method (Pat Pattison)
2 syllables
destined2edmundsectioned3Shetland
3 syllables
complexioned2confectionedpredestined
96
What it is
  1. The syllables' vowel sounds are the same.
  2. The consonants after the vowel are not phonetically related.
  3. The syllables begin differently.
How it feels
  1. Perfect
  2. Family
  3. Additive / Subtractive
  4. Assonance
  5. Consonance
resolvedunresolved
Example

love / dot — both AH, but V and T have nothing in common

Assonance rhymes always have consonants after the vowels, but the consonants cannot be phonetically related.

Source
Berklee College of Music's songwriting method (Pat Pattison)
2 syllables
mentioned3legend4questioned10chairmaneddeafenedenginederrandfreshenedgerundleavened1lengthenedlessened1pensionedstrengthenedchecking14reckon2echo2becky1echoes3
3 syllables
accessionedcontentioneddimensioned3intentioned2unquestionedRebeccaechoing1beckoning1reckoning2decadence1bedeckingcheckeringdecadentdecadentsdecorous
4 syllables
bottleneckingdecadences1impeccableimpeccably
13
What it is
  1. The syllables' vowel sounds are identical.
  2. The sounds after the vowels (if any) are identical.
  3. The syllables begin the same — repetition, not a rhyme.
How it feels

Off the rhyme scale — identity is repetition, not resolution. Shown so you can spot it, not reach for it.

Example

fuse / confuse — both stressed syllables are 'fuse'

Source
Berklee College of Music's songwriting method (Pat Pattison)
1 syllable
sec1
2 syllables
seconds2seckelseckelsparsec
3 syllables
canseco1seconded10seconding10secondly
4 syllables
millisecondmillisecondsnanosecondnanoseconds

“second” at line end — from real songs

And I'm older now than he was thenIf I could go back in time, I would in a second
— Lori McKenna, “People Get Old” · rhymes second / then
And, in essence, I can burn more joules of energy per secondYou get the diggy? I flip my incandescence to fluorescence
— Joanna Newsom, “Right On” · rhymes second / fluorescence
Twenty five frames per secondTwenty four carats
— Keren Ann, “101” · rhymes second / carats

How to read the 109 results

Tiers follow Pat Pattison's stability scale — pick the resolution your line needs, not just the closest sound. Bold words are common in lyrics; a struck-through word with a cliché flag is an overworked pair; a vermilion dot counts how often the pair appears at line end in our corpus of real songs.

Perfect rhyme 2
Same stressed vowel, same sounds after it, different beginning. Full resolution — the strongest closure a rhyme can give a line.
Family rhyme 4
The consonants after the vowel are swapped for phonetic siblings — T↔D, M↔N, S↔Z. Nearly as stable as perfect rhyme, with far more word choices.
Additive 7
Same vowel, but one word carries an extra consonant after the shared ending. The added sound softens the landing slightly.
Assonance 96
Only the stressed vowel matches; the consonants after it are unrelated. Loose and open — useful when a section should stay unresolved.
Identity 13
The whole stressed syllable repeats, beginning included. That's repetition, not rhyme — the line echoes instead of resolving.