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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

clerihew.

A humorous rhyme of four lines with the rhyming scheme AABB, usually regarding a person mentioned in the first line.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈklɛɹɨˌhjuː/Received-Pronunciation/ˈklɛɹɪ̈ˌhju/General-American
  1. A humorous rhyme of four lines with the rhyming scheme AABB, usually regarding a person mentioned in the first line.

Where this word comes from

Named after English humourist and novelist Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875–1956), who invented the rhyme.

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clerihew studioclerihew workshello, clerihew

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.