Free Limerick Generator
Generate a five-line limerick with the AABBA rhyme, the bouncing anapestic rhythm, and a punchline on the last line.
Limerick · Reflective
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What is a limerick?
Five lines, a fixed bounce, and a joke at the end. The limerick is the most reliably funny form in English because the rhythm sets a trap in the first line and the fifth line springs it.
The rules, exactly
- Exactly five lines rhyming AABBA.
- Lines 1, 2 and 5 have three stressed beats; lines 3 and 4 have two.
- The rhythm is anapestic: da-da-DUM.
- The tone is comic and the last line must deliver a punchline or reversal.
- Lines
- 5
- Rhyme
- AABBA
Where it comes from
The form circulated in English drinking songs through the eighteenth century and was popularised by Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense in 1846. Lear usually repeated the first line's rhyme word at the end; later writers preferred a fresh punchline.
There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, 'It is just as I feared!'