[as-uh-nuh
ns] 
| 1. | resemblance of sounds. |
| 2. | Also called vowel rhyme. Prosody. rhyme in which the same vowel sounds are used with different consonants in the stressed syllables of the rhyming words, as in penitent and reticence. |
| 3. | partial agreement or correspondence. |
| as·so·nance (ās'ə-nəns) n.
[French, from Latin assonāre, to respond to : ad-, ad- + sonāre, to sound; see swen- in Indo-European roots.] as'so·nant adj. & n., as'so·nan'tal (-nān'tl) adj. |
assonance
in prosody, repetition of stressed vowel sounds within words with different end consonants, as in the phrase "quite like." It is unlike rhyme, in which initial consonants differ but both vowel and end-consonant sounds are identical, as in the phrase "quite right." Many common phrases, such as "mad as a hatter," "free as a breeze," or "high as a kite," owe their appeal to assonance. As a poetic device, internal assonance is usually combined with alliteration (repetition of initial consonant sounds) and consonance (repetition of end or medial consonant sounds) to enrich the texture of the poetic line. Sometimes a single vowel sound is repeated, as in the opening line of Thomas Hood's "Autumn": I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
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