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rhyme or reason. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Etymology
Calque of Middle French n'y avoir ryme ne raison (Eustache Deschamps), attributed to the poet Edmund Spenser in a conversation with Queen Elizabeth I. (Can this(+) etymology be sourced?)
Pronunciation
Noun
rhyme or reason (uncountable)
- (idiomatic, chiefly in the negative) Logic; common sense.
Prices vary considerably from one town to another with no apparent rhyme or reason.
He would often fly into an unexpected rage without rhyme or reason.
Usage notes
- Almost always used in a negative form, particularly with no and, adverbially, without. May also occur as rhyme nor reason, e.g. after neither.
Translations
logic or common sense
- Finnish: tolkku (fi), (adverb, negative) syyttä suotta (fi)
- French: (verbs, negative) n’avoir ni queue ni tête (fr), ne rimer à rien (fr)
- Galician: sen ton nin son
- German: Sinn und Verstand
- Italian: (negative) né capo né coda, (adverb, negative) senza capo né coda
- Polish: no equivalent term in Polish, but see bez ładu i składu (pl)
- Portuguese: sem pé nem cabeça (pt)
- Russian: (negative) ни скла́ду, ни ла́ду (ni skládu, ni ládu)
- Scottish Gaelic: (negative) gun ì, gun ò, gun adhbhar
- Swedish: rim och reson (sv)
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References
Further reading