Wilder Rhymes · WilderCode

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Why this exists: I’m a songwriter and composer. I built Wilder Rhymes for myself, over more than 10 years, to replace slow lookups in printed rhyme dictionaries — I use it every day. It’s built around my own process: turning a song’s title and a handful of key words into a worksheet of rhyme options.

This is an early preview — it has bugs and rough edges. I’d love your thoughts, ideas, and bug reports; that’s exactly what this stage is for. I’m also curious how you’d want to use this day to day — a standalone app, a plugin for your favorite editor, or something else? Email me anytime: teamwilder@wildercode.com.
The short version: Type a word and press Rhyme. Click a result to add it to Your list. Click its spyglass to rhyme that word instead. Click ≈ for synonyms and other word forms. When you’re done, Copy the list into your lyrics or notes.
The workflow it was built for: Start with your song title. Write down 5–10 words that capture its subject, mood, or imagery. Rhyme each word, and follow the spyglass when one is close but not quite right. This builds a rhyme list made for your one song, not a generic word list. Use the ← and → arrows to move back and forward through your searches — a dead end costs you nothing.
…but use it however you like: You don’t have to follow that process. Stuck on one line? Need a word that fits a certain way? Just look it up and go.
Deterministic, not suggested: Every result comes from a specific phonetic rule, not a guess or a ranking. Within your chosen Groups, the list is complete and repeatable: same word, same filters, same results, every time. That means you’ll see words you’d never use sitting next to the one you want — picking the right one is your job; showing you every option is the tool’s.
Every candidate is shown; you filter: You may see a proper noun, an abbreviation, or an obscure word in the results — that’s on purpose, not a mistake. This early version doesn’t yet tag words by category beyond part of speech, so it shows every match for the sound and leaves the judgment call to you. Future versions may add clearer labels (proper noun, technical term, and similar) — but only as an extra filter, never as words hidden from you.
Closure, not “close enough”: Results are grouped by closure — how completely the words sound alike, the way a chord resolves in music. Neither end is better. Match the closure to the feeling of your line: a settled line wants a tight rhyme; an unresolved or anxious one wants the looseness of a weaker rhyme. A perfect rhyme in the wrong spot can close a door you meant to leave open. See rhyme categories? for the full ladder.

Try reading these aloud to hear the difference:
Perfect, fully closed: snow / go
Family, the ending loosened: time / smile
Consonance, only the ending shared: time / blame
Don’t skip the near rungs: The top rungs are closer than they look on paper. Partner and family rhymes — where the ending consonants are close cousins rather than identical — sound almost the same as a perfect rhyme when spoken or sung. The ear hears resolution, not the small consonant swap. Real looseness only shows up further down the ladder, and even then it’s a tool, not a flaw. These near rungs roughly triple your options at no real cost — check them first when a perfect rhyme only gives you clichés.
Built for the ear, not the eye: Every match is based on sound, never spelling, measured from the word’s main stress to the end. So crow and dough rhyme perfectly even though they look nothing alike, while cough and bough share four letters and don’t rhyme at all. This tool is built for sung and spoken work, where sound is what matters — not spelling. That’s also why stress is shown on every result: a word can rhyme perfectly and still not fit your line if the stress falls wrong.
Compound words rhyme from their stress: A word like sunshine rhymes from its main stress — here, that’s “sun-” (matching fun, one), not “-shine” the way mine/wine might suggest. Want the “-shine” half instead? Search that word on its own (shine) so it anchors on its own stress.
Your list stays in your browser: It’s saved on your device, never on the server — close the tab and it’s still here. Clear your browser data or switch devices, though, and it’s gone, so Copy anything you want to keep.

Reading a result

The word itself: Click it to add it to Your list. A green ✓ means it’s already there — click again to remove it.
Your list: A running worksheet of the words you’ve picked, grouped by the word you searched to find them. It holds more than one search at a time, so you can rhyme several words in the same session — handy for building a rhyme palette around one tricky line or a full song lyric worksheet. It appears once you add your first word, and stays saved in your browser — close the tab and it’s still there. Copy exports it as plain text; Clear empties it. Nothing here is sent to the server.
The spyglass: Rhymes that word instead, replacing the results. For a phrase, it rhymes the last word.
Part of speech: n noun · v verb · adj adjective · adv adverb · np proper noun (a name or place, shown capitalized). A word used as more than one type shows all of them — n·v.
Syllable dots: The quiet · inside a word (won·der·ful) is an optional reading aid. Turn it on under the gear icon. It’s based on spelling, so the split is approximate.
The underline: Marks the part that actually rhymes, based on the stressed vowel. Its color shows closure: strong orange for close rhymes, fading to grey as the rhyme loosens — so you can see how strong a rhyme is without reading the rung name.
Dimmed words: The rhyme lands on a secondary stress, not the main one, so it’s a bit softer. Still usable — just weaker in the same spot.
Missing ≈: Not every word has a thesaurus entry. If there’s nothing to show, we leave off the button instead of opening an empty panel.
Word insight 👁: Point at the small eye beside a word (or tap it on touch) for how to say it — a plain-English respelling like tuh-MAY-toh, not IPA — plus its stress pattern, part of speech, and every sense the lexicon has, grouped by part of speech — handy for telling homographs apart, like bank the river from bank the money. It only opens on the eye itself, not the whole word, so moving across a page of results doesn’t pop a panel per word. Click elsewhere, or scroll, to close it.

What do the filters do?

Part of speech: Noun, verb, adjective, adverb all start checked, meaning no filtering. Uncheck a box to exclude it — a word must match every box that's still checked, so unchecking down to just noun + verb keeps only words that work as both, handy for title words. Words missing from the part-of-speech list are left out. Uncheck everything and no word can match all of nothing, so results go empty. All is a master checkbox: it always mirrors whether every box is checked, and clicking it is a pure toggle — on turns every box on, off turns every box off.
Rhyme type: All closure categories (perfect … identity) start checked, meaning everything shows. Uncheck a box to exclude that category — useful when you want just assonant matches, say. Uncheck everything to show none. All is a master checkbox: it always mirrors whether every box is checked, and clicking it is a pure toggle — on turns every box on, off turns every box off. This filters the results you already have; it doesn’t run a new search.
Groups: Which kinds of words the search can reach. Checking a box adds that kind — a word shows if it matches any box you’ve checked. Core is ordinary vocabulary, checked by default, and is always suitable for general audiences. Common adds the 50,000 most-used English words, of any register. Slang, informal, dialect, vulgar, archaic, poetic, and nonsense are optional extras, off by default. Offensive has no box here — General Audiences, below, is its only control.
General Audiences: Hides offensive words, on by default. It always wins, even if another checked box (like Slang) would normally include one. Turn it off to allow them — nothing is lost permanently, and you can turn it back on any time. Vulgar has its own box above and isn’t affected by this switch.

Rhyme categories?

Perfect · full closure: The stressed vowel and everything after it match exactly. time / chime
Partner · very strong closure: Same vowel. The ending consonants are close pairs made the same way in the mouth, just voiced vs. unvoiced (p/b, t/d, k/g, f/v, s/z…), or both nasal (m/n/ng) or both liquid (l/r). code / coat, sign / time
Family · strong closure: Same vowel. The ending consonants are a looser match — any two sounds made the same way (like two plosives, or two fricatives), even from different spots in the mouth. Sound just like perfect rhyme when spoken or sung. leaf / lease, back / bat
Additive · partial closure: A perfect rhyme with a consonant added on the end. love / doves
Subtractive · partial closure: A perfect rhyme with a trailing consonant removed. time / high
Assonance · weak closure: Same vowel and the same stress pattern at the end, but the ending consonants don’t match. Only the vowel is marked. time / bind
Consonance · weakest closure: Different vowel, same ending consonants. Only the ending is marked. time / blame
Identity · not a true rhyme: The ending matches, and so does the sound right before the stressed vowel — it sounds like the same word repeated. Kept separate so it doesn’t clutter real rhymes. happy / unhappy, place / replace