Half rhyme or slant rhyme, sometimes called near rhyme, or imperfect rhyme, is consonance on the final consonants of the words involved (e.g. ill with shell). Many half/slant rhymes are also eye rhymes.^{[citation needed]}

Half/slant rhyme is widely used in Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Icelandic verse.^{[citation needed]} Half/slant rhyme has been found in English-language poetry as early as Henry Vaughan,^{[citation needed]} but it was not until the works of W. B. Yeats^{[citation needed]} and Gerard Manley Hopkins^{[citation needed]} that it found wide use among English-language poets.^{[citation needed]} In the 20th century half/slant rhyme has been used widely by English poets.^{[citation needed]} Often, as in most of Yeats' poems, it is mixed with other devices such as regular rhymes, assonance, and para-rhymes.^{[citation needed]} In the following example the 'rhymes' are on/moon and bodies/ladies:

Moses ibn Ezra, 12th century Hebrew poet and poetry theoretician, terms the practice of poets to use half-rhyme "donkey-rhyming".^{[citation needed]}

Richard Wayne Penniman (born December 5, 1932), known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the mid-1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and contributed significantly to the early development of soul music. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website entry on Penniman states that:

He claims to be "the architect of rock and roll", and history would seem to bear out Little Richard’s boast. More than any other performer – save, perhaps, Elvis Presley, Little Richard blew the lid off the Fifties, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona. On record, he made spine-tingling rock and roll. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals on such classics as "Tutti Frutti", "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll.