Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A humorous verse, usually consisting of two unmatched rhyming couplets, about a person whose name generally serves as one of the rhymes.
Wiktionary
- n. A rhyme of four lines, usually regarding a person mentioned in the first line.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. a witty satiric verse containing two rhymed couplets and mentioning a famous person.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a witty satiric verse containing two rhymed couplets and mentioning a famous person
Etymologies
- Named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley (Wiktionary)
- After Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956), British writer. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Paul Griffin describes A Christmas Carol in a clerihew that has as its first quatrain:”
“Is the leading of fashion. mike replied to comment from clerihew”
Freshwater: Yet another student and yet another cross - The Panda's Thumb
“Note that the Dennis family has moved out of the district on account of pressure brought to bear on their children, mostly in the schools and some of it from teachers and coaches. clerihew replied to comment from Marion Delgado”
Freshwater: Yet another student and yet another cross - The Panda's Thumb
“J.R.R. Tolkien perfectly summed up the critical reaction to his fiction in a clerihew:”
“But one thing is certain: counting hands is a medieval way to resolve that question, relying more on the concept of ‘might makes right’ than any rationality or logic. clerihew replied to comment from Chip Poirot”
“I wrote this clerihew about a week ago, but hesitated in posting it.”
“I was therefore already familiar with the categorical imperative, not least in Auden's rather fine clerihew:”
“July 10 is Clerihew Day, marking the birth date in 1875 of Edmund Clerihew Bentley, the British writer who invested a four-line rhyming verse, usually biographical in nature and resembling a limerick, that came to be known as a “clerihew.””
“Bentley composed the first clerihew about Sir Humphrey Davy, the chemist credited with isolating and naming aluminum.”
“This blog uses a clerihew of mine about Dorothy Parker.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘clerihew’.
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phrontistery - c
from phrontistery.info
czardas, cytometer, cytology, cytheromania, cystoscope, cystolith, cyrenaic, cypseline, cyprinoid, cyphonism, cynophobia, cytogenesis and 1298 more...
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I didn't know there was a word for that!
interdigitate, aspheric, benthos, reptation, pastiche, pandiculate, agelast, obdormition, dysania, armscye, phosphene, etiolation and 62 more...
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Rexicon
brazen, insipid, cuss, penchant, salacious, titillate, lurid, schlemiel, interlope, masquerade, supercilious, action-taking and 51 more...
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
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To Learn
enervate, redolent, distaff, approbation, arrogate, bonhomie, palliate, calumny, panoply, contumacious, edify, dyspeptic and 188 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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wanderstar's Words
superlative, mulish, mumps, catatonic, aquiline, clandestine, phantasmagoria, chryselephantine, microfiche, mutineer, reprobate, ruthless and 312 more...
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patterns
ergodic, stochastic, stereopsis, echolocation, holocation, broker, map, intarsia, encipher, ocellus, muslin, mandelbrot set and 159 more...
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beatricks's Words
tremendous, naiad, thrush, samsara, thronging, nascent, broom, aristeia, streak, susurrant, reverberate, resistentialism and 352 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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A spoonful of sugar
Words I should learn/I want to learn/I just learned, with a quotation to help the medicine go down.
approbation, assuage, chicanery, abscond, effrontery, enervation, equivocate, ennui, aftertaste, filibuster, perfunctory, abide and 391 more...
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As soon as I finish this chapter
x
procrastination, drily, rheumatism, rheum, suint, tiresome, wearisome, tiring, suboptimal, subpar, subprime, grange and 190 more...
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Papageno's Words, Pt. I
hobbledehoy, absquatulate, chthonic, prolix, ululate, internecine, verisimilitude, animadversion, concupiscence, vertiginous, cucullate, lucubrate and 1554 more...
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Dewitful
visions of witfulness and vision - a wise guise
revision, advisor, ideal, witty, witness, veda, druid, penguin, hadal, idea, story, history and 269 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, C
cryptoxanthin, convent, calcar, chuckle, campanile, covet, complexion, campestral, chirography, counterscarp, caliginous, catabolism and 722 more...
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Words I Learned on FreeRice.com
A place for me to keep all these weird words, whether I guessed them correctly or not.
pennoncel, serval, tautological, redact, ganef, candent, shaitan, bifid, osteal, ensiform, helve, ecdysis and 100 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for clerihew.

johnmperry Here the TV says Reeko or Rick-o:
Riccardo Ricco
was fingered by a medico
turned out he was dealing
while most of his team were only wheeling Jul 19, 2008
yarb Shevek: not a strict clerihew since the first line is more than just name, but excusable since extra-funny. Jul 19, 2008
yarb Thanks bilby!
Riccardo Riccò
went faster than anyone else could go.
He went faster than a moped
but it turned out that he was dopéd. Jul 19, 2008
shevek I can't remember where I found it, but one of my favorite clerihews is
Jul 19, 2008bilby In Italian orthography, the accent shows where the stress falls. It appears in words where the stress is on the final syllable as this is a relatively 'unnatural' pattern for Italian. Still, there are certain tenses, eg. future and remote past, that fraught with finally-accented forms. So, yes, you are correct yarb. Ric-CO. Jul 19, 2008
yarb Can an Italian-speaker help me out please? I want to do a clerihew about Riccardo Riccò - am I right in thinking you stress the second syllable of his surname? I.e. it would rhyme with go rather than thicko? Jul 18, 2008
sionnach The two favorite clerihews in a Boston Globe contest.
Tim Berners-Lee
Invented HTTP
Thus the World Wide Web was born
For Nigerian Diplomats and porn.
Bill Gates
Has left the giant software company everyone hates.
"Hey, Mistah?
Are *you* gonna use Vista?" Jul 13, 2008
bemmie74 The M-W.com example sentence always cracks me up:
My favorite of Edmund C. Bentley's clerihews is the following: "What I like about Clive
Is that he is no longer alive.
There is a great deal to be said
For being dead." Dec 8, 2006