alliteration
noun
called also head rhyme, initial rhyme
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What is alliteration?
In alliteration, consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables are repeated. The repeated sounds are usually the first, or initial, sounds—as in "seven sisters"—but repetition of sounds in non-initial stressed, or accented, syllables is also common: "appear and report." Alliteration is a common feature in poetry, but it is also found in songs and raps and speeches and other kinds of writing, as well as in frequently used phrases, such as "pretty as a picture" and "dead as a doornail."
Alliteration can in its simplest form reinforce one or two consonant sounds, as in this line from William Shakespeare's "Sonnet XII":
When I do count the clock that tells the time
A more complex pattern of alliteration can be created when consonants both at the beginning of words and at the beginning of stressed syllables within words are repeated, as in the following line from Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples":
The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's
As a poetic device, alliteration is often discussed with assonance, the repetition of stressed vowel sounds within two or more words with different end consonants, as in "stony" and "holy"; and consonance, the repetition of end or medial consonants, as in "stroke" and "luck."
Examples of alliteration in a Sentence
Maxine Kumin, "A Questionnaire," 1977,
in To Make a Prairie, 1979
More specifically, how are actual events deformed by the application to them of metaphor, rhetorical comparison, prose rhythm, assonance, alliteration, allusion, and sentence structures and connectives implying clear causality?
—Paul Fussel, The Great War and Modern Memory, 1975
Randy McMullen, Mercury News, 23 Oct. 2025
Another thing that comes through loud and clear is the model’s brilliance with alliteration.
—John Werner, Forbes.com, 13 Aug. 2025
Maritime Two New York schools that specialize in maritime studies AND alliteration?
—Chris Vannini, New York Times, 8 July 2025
Pardon the alliteration, but Rockies road rallies are really rare.
—Patrick Saunders, Denver Post, 16 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for alliteration
Cite this Entry
“Alliteration.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alliteration. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
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alliteration
noun
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