Words that rhyme with Despise
Treated as a workaday word, despise is also a two-syllable sound-shape on a long-i vowel that opens the mouth โ one that softens into a fricative tail. It's an unremarkable word until the verse asks it to do something. Songwriters reach for it as a household-word. Perfect rhymes are common for this one, no family rhymes survive the strict family test, and the slant pool is enormous on the vowel side. Start strict, scan family, and only reach for assonance when the line wants slant.
Open despise in RhymeForge โPerfect rhymes (25 shown)
Exact match from the stressed vowel onward, with voice-pair near-perfects folded in.
- advise
- applies
- apprise
- arise
- baptize
- belies
- chastise
- complies
- comprise
- decries
- defies
- demise
- denies
- devise
- disguise
- emprise
- relies
- replies
- reprise
- revise
- supplies
- surmise
- surprise
- unwise
- advice
Family rhymes (0 shown)
Same vowel, with a single consonant swapped for one from the same articulatory family. Slant rhymes that pass the ear test.
No family rhymes for despise. Reach for assonance below for the closest slant rhyming.
Additive & subtractive (25 shown)
Same core sound, with an extra consonant added (or one dropped) at the end.
- advised
- apprised
- baptized
- chastised
- comprised
- despised
- devised
- disguised
- revised
- surmised
- surprised
- apply
- awry
- belie
- bonsai
- comply
- decry
- defy
- deny
- descry
- hereby
- lanai
- rely
- reply
- retry
Assonance (25 shown)
Matching vowel sound, consonants ignored. The biggest pool by far, and the workhorse of slant rhyming.
- enticed
- mispriced
- repriced
- sufficed
- abide
- abides
- admire
- admires
- affine
- affined
- affines
- afire
- alight
- align
- aligned
- aligns
- alike
- aline
- alines
- alive
- allied
- applied
- argyll
- arrive
- arrived
Consonance (25 shown)
Matching consonant sound, vowels ignored. Best for texture and tension rather than punch.
- ablaze
- abuzz
- accrues
- accuse
- agrees
- allays
- allows
- amaze
- amuse
- appease
- applause
- appraise
- arose
- arouse
- arrays
- ballets
- because
- bemuse
- bestows
- betrays
- bouquets
- canoes
- carouse
- chalets
- chartreuse
How songwriters use these rhymes
Every time I write despise, the next line wants advise.
No family rhymes for despise. Reach for assonance below for the closest slant.
Despise at the verse, advised at the line that follows it.
Despise at the line's beginning, enticed at its end, same vowel humming through both.
The despise at the start of the line, the ablaze tucked inside it, same consonant frame.
Why despise rhymes the way it does
In our engine, despise registers as a two-syllable word on the full-throated /aษช/ (/i/) that trails off into a fricative. In our 54,000-word dictionary the perfect-rhyme pool returns 98 matches, family rhymes 0, additive and subtractive together 108, assonance 2,935, and consonance 730. That's a deep perfect column. The song can ride strict rhymes from end to end, only sliding into assonance when the line needs to surprise. Writing-tip: don't end every line with the strict rhyme. Use the slant columns at the joints and the strict matches at the seams. Despise works hardest when the slant carries the verse and the strict match closes the chorus.
More songwriting tools
Stuck on the chord side of the song? The chord progression builder on the Undercover Zest home page maps every common progression in every key, with borrowed chords and substitutions called out. Need a fresh angle on a stuck lyric? CollisionLab generates unexpected word pairings to break a writer's block. All free, no signup.
About RhymeForge
RhymeForge is the free rhyme finder built into Undercover Zest. It searches over 54,000 words across five rhyme types: perfect, family, additive, assonance, and consonance. It is built for songwriters, not crossword solvers, and the slant-rhyme classifications are tuned accordingly.
This page is a static snapshot of the rhymes for despise. For interactive search, voice-pair highlighting, syllable counting and quality sorting, open despise in RhymeForge above.