Poetic Terms Dictionary
Sound Device

Leonine Rhyme

Named (perhaps apocryphally) after Pope Leo or a medieval poet named Leoninus. Common in Latin hexameters of the 12th century; occasional in English verse.

Definition

A form of internal rhyme in which the word immediately before the caesura rhymes with the final word of the line.

Example

'The moaning and groaning' — the medial and final words carry the same rhyme sound.

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